' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



-^ 



Slielfi..S.4-SS 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICxi. 



.V V . 



\ 



IN SEVILLE 



AND 



Three Toledan Days 



BY 

/' 

WILLIS STEELL 



Author of "The Death of the Discoverer, 
"IsiDRA," Etc 







New York: „„-^ ,<a^ 

HILLIER MURRAY AND COMPANY, ^ "7 ^ ^V -'^*^ 
Vanderbilt Building-. 

1894. 






Copyright, 1894, 

BY HiLLiER Murray and Company. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



P. F. McBreen, Printer, 

216 and 218 William Street. 

New York. 



vi 



^J 



NOTE. 

With one exception, the articles which make up 
this book have appeared before in print, and the author 
takes this opportunity of cordially thanking the editors 
of Harper's "Ba^ar, Godeys, the Times-'Democrat of New 
Orleans, and the Herald of Chicago, for permission to 
use them again. 



Dedicafion 



My Dear Frank— 

If this book can look confidently to any one for in- 
dulgence, it must be to you, who are, in some degree, 
responsible for it. Except for the idea of pleasing you, 
it would never have appeared between covers, but had 
been, perforce, content with the piece-meal life it has 
hitherto led in the files of various journals and maga- 
zines. Your responsibility goes deeper, for I can almost 
assert that yours were the eyes that saw, and yours the 
hand that set down, much that is here described. If that 
is not true to the letter, in spirit it is incontrovertible. 

All that follows you have already read three or four 
times over. I suppose you will read the book now, and 
we may regret together that the spirit of our delightful 
winter in Seville is not more faithfully preserved. But 
there are hints wathin these pages which you and I alone 
can appreciate. How could I reveal some of our innocent 
secrets to others? Do you think the attempt would have 
been successful had I unstoppered the vase of personal 
reminiscence? We would have lost some of its subtle 
aroma without enriching the common air. 

In truth, I do not think this book can dull the edge 
of our recollections, any more than the newspaper letters 
which we wrote about Seville while we were living in 



Seville. They were careless things, and this is not much 
better. But keep the book which I inscribe to you, as we 
keep hotel bills, (receipted) and other legal evidence that 
we really have been in Seville. Otherwise, as the years 
crowd up to a decade since we were there, we might 
wonder if it were more than a delightful dream. Put it 
away and when we talk again of Seville, it will not be on 
the lines this book lays down. It will be as formerly: 

"Do you remember ?" "Have you forgotten ?" 

— incidents as undignified and joyous as youth itself. 
And you may be sure, my dear Frank, that not a moment 
of that gay and charming winter has been forgotten by 
your friend 

WILLIS STEELL. 



To FRANCIS M. LIVINGSTON. 



IN SEVILLE 



IN SEVILLE. 
L 

THAT first week in Seville was a very 
lonely one. It was the rainy and guestless 
season, when dining in the great hall of the 
Fonda de Madrid, where we were quartered 
all alone, was a duty that subdued our spirits 
like a funeral. Two places were laid for us 
at the head of the board, which extended its 
linen-shrouded length through the immense 
room, and we had not w^alked to our seats 
many times before the table began- to w^ear a 
look of reproach, as if but for us they would 
take off the white cloth and leave it to the 
repose natural to the season. There came 
no cheerful French commercial travelers, no 
Spanish clerks, who are great supporters of 
table d'hote, to help us out, for the reason 
that another ordinary of the city is more 
popular with them ; but, on tw^o evenings, we 
had the company of a thin, tearful English 
lady, who acknowledged what courtesies we 
could give with monosyllables and ends of 



2 IN SEVILLE. 

smiles. Before the close of dinner, however, 
she grew emboldened to beg our escort, 
next day, to the Tobacco Manufactory. 
Would we take her? Her party was leaving 
Seville next day but one, and she was so dis- 
trustful of the commissionnaires ! 

We were charmed. I think, at the time, 
we would have been attracted by a wooden 
woman if, by a stretch of the possibilities, 
she could speak English — and the pale, fem- 
inine guest lapsed confidential. She had 
come to Seville with two ladies, who had not 
stirred out of their rooms since arriving, 
three days before. " Are they sick?" we in- 
quired with sympathy. 

" Sick ? No !" she answered, almost in tears. 
'' They have simply been lying down, read- 
ing novels. What is your idea? To come 
to Seville to read Besant's novels, without 
stirring a foot to see the place where Carmen 
made cigarettes! It is just preposterous." 

When she had gone, and with her the En- 
glish novelist's admirers, whom, by the way,, 
we never saw, the dreary state of the Ma- 
drid's dinner weighed heavier than before, 
and at length seemed insupportable. We 
lost appetite, and must have broken the 
cook's heart, it he was a conscientious artist, 
by sending back so many dishes untouched. 
At this juncture we sighed for a place where 



IN SEVILLE. 5 

there would be less to eat and more com- 
pany to eat it. That conjunction is found in 
its highest development, we reflected, in an 
American boarding-house ; why not in a 
Spanish ? 

Then it was that we discovered in our 
wanderings in the streets of the Love of God, 
of Jesus, of Santa Isabel — each very clean, 
very dark, and very winding — one named for 
a more familiar saint, the O'Donnell, which, 
for that reason, we closely scanned. So it 
came about — I remember no more romantic 
chance— that one day we rang Mariana's 
bell. The dim and narrow hall that we were 
admitted to, the dim and cold citarto bajo, or 
room off the hall, which, we were told, was 
at our disposal ; the slatternly maid who told 
us this, with explanations in a Spanish we 
could not understand, because, as we after- 
ward learned, it was Catalan, and lastly, the 
appearance of Mariana in person, a tall, 
buxom woman, with hard, white cheeks and 
a cold smile— surely none ol these induce- 
ments was tempting enough to cause us to 
take up our abode there. But we did, and 
I can think of no other temptation. 

Stop ! There was Margarita ; she was the 
cook, an Irish woman of perhaps fifty winters, 
stout and ruddy; Margarita it must have been 
who clinched the bargain. She came out of 



4 IN SEVILLE. 

her kitchen on learning that we were En- 
gHsh, and wept big, slow tears at the sound 
of her mother-tongue, which she had almost 
forgotten. 

Poor old Margarita ! Every morning, while 
we remained, she came into the dining-room, 
or stood, with arms folded under a small 
triangular shawl, just inside of the door to 
demand what we would eat for breakfast : 
"An egg now ? " or " a bit of beef ?" only for 
the sake of hearing the answer in English. 
Margarita had not many ideas in her kindly 
old head and fewer memories; she could not 
remember when she left Ireland, but she was 
a saucy girl there, and she had forgotten when 
she came to Spain, and why. She was certain 
of but one thing, which she seemed to think 
explained the rest, as it certainly did, she had 
married her " sojer " and accompanied him. 

Once we visited Margarita's kitchen ; that 
was not too remote, being at the end of the 
hall, two doors only from our chamber and 
adjoining the dining-room. It was a large, 
gloomy place, lighted by two disheartened 
windows, and seemed so lit for the brewing 
of an insane potion that after seeing it we 
forgot to grumble at the table, in our wonder 
at any food palatable proceeding thence. 
Margarita, indeed, was a cheery gramalkin, 
and her songs went up through the huge 



IN SEVILLE. 5 

overhanging chimney about as continuously 
as the smoke. A brick dresser, with several 
furnaces in which charcoal was burned, filled 
the space under the chimney, and its surface 
was constantly occupied by pucheros that 
were going to the fire or had but come off. 
Other pucheros, stone pots, hung on nails on 
the walls, of every different size, like the 
progeny of prolific parents. From that 
kitchen, Margarita said, she had not stirred 
for three years, except when it was neces- 
sary to go out into the street to haggle w^ith 
a cheating carbonaro ; and, in truth, she 
seemed to be there day and night ; the door 
was rarely closed, and during the day we 
could hear her moving heavily about, and at 
night see her sitting in the draught, with the 
triangular shawl drawn over her head, and 
smoking a pipe as objectionable to the nose 
as an extinct volcano. 

The comedor of Mariana's pension, on the 
contrary, was an exceedingly cheerful room, 
really being the patio, enclosed with a glass 
roof, under which so gayly sang half a dozen 
canaries that I fancied they took the glass 
lor an ordinary layer of atmosphere. The 
table, covered with a cloth no longer white, 
filled the place. It was thronged at the 
dinner hour with a piratical company of sul- 
len, scowling boarders^ who extinguished 



IN SEVILLE. 



the cloth beneath arms, elbows and shoulders. 
The first impression made by our fellow- 
guests was not happy ; but it improved as 
we came to know them better, though it 
would be untrue to say that the young men 
who ate at Mariana's table ever grew less in- 
attentive than they showed themselves to be 
on the first day, to many of the commonest 
and widest established axioms of good breed- 
ing as practised in other parts of the world. 
It seems important, having said this, to define 
their position in the world, for Mariana's 
w^as a polite pension, and her boarders were 
cadets and young government clerks, and 
many of them the sons of noblemen, though 
her principal support was drawn from the 
medical college, whose dissecting-rooms 
were just around the corner. 

Except the cadets, who wore very becom- 
ing fatigue caps, all the men kept on their 
hats at table, and we seemed to be breaking 
our daily bread in company of a second-hand 
hat shop, that boasted its ability to turn any 
sort of old head covering into an indistinct 
resemblance to the last Paris fashion. The 
monotony went deeper, for, except the cadets 
again, who flaunted the flag of youth in their 
cheeks, the countenances of this dinner 
tertulia had been touched by the same brush, 
one dipped in the soberest colors of the 



IN SEVILLE. 7 

palette. In respect to age, also, no guest 
seemed to have the advantage of the others 
— all were young, and all were also old ; in 
appearance and in conversation they were 
young old men, who had seen the world and 
realized how hard life was in it, save in times 
of revolution. I do not wish to be under- 
stood to say that their appearance and con- 
versation affected this knowledge, a trick 
not uncommon with young men the world 
over. It was the contrary with these youth- 
ful Spaniards, a spirit of worldly wisdom 
affecting them, and weighting the brightest 
with a measure of sadness. Their talk of the 
•events ot the hour, political and economical, 
never made one smile with the half-pitying, 
wholly envying feeling that young Ameri- 
cans inspire in their elders when they give to 
commonplaces the accent of fresh discovery. 
One felt that these young men were handling 
parts of the machine which had crushed 
them, and speaking out of the fullness of in- 
herited despair. 

We had removed from Mariana's, and 
gained a wider Spanish experience before we 
realized that the manners of her boarders 
were perfect copies of their elders, for in the 
vivacity of their prandial discussions or quar- 
rels, if bandying depreciatory diminutives of 
proper names and distributing light adjec- 



IN SEVILLE. 



tives among fathers and more remote ances- 
tors may be called quarrels, our fellow 
boarders seemed to be very young. Ours 
was a table of words, where we ate and de- 
bated with equal voracit3^ No subject was 
too sublime or too petty for Mariana's pailia- 
ment, and we were equally divided, the right 
side of the board from the left, over them all. 
If the Left jeered at the bailerina of a salon 
cantante, the Right instantly spoke up in 
her favor; but Right and Left usually spoke at 
once, or, if either seized a moment of silence, 
to begin to declare an opinion, the other side 
was up, shouting a perfect din of *' aba—aaa 
— jos," and keeping it up till breath gave out 
all round the table. 

Such reputations as were made and un- 
made in the same instant at Mariana's ! The 
Prima, of the Cirvaute sings false, cries 
the Left, and Right almost instantaneously 
shouts that Spain enjoys in her another Maria 
Garcia. Senor Sagasta at one moment is the 
leader of his party and his country's good 
angel ; at the next he is a dolt, a trickster, a 
puppet — ' abaaaa-jo !" Down with him ! 

It was not easy for the stranger to make 
nice distinctions in these family jars, so to 
speak, or to know the exact line that divided 
friendly difference from hateful dissension, 
but I observed that one young man who sat 



IN SEVILLE. 9 

near enough to the head of the table to be 
neutral, though mostly a silent and diligent 
feeder, always spoke up at those moments 
when blows appeared imminent, and by a 
sally, between two spoonsful of beans, buried 
the hatchet in a laugh. This peacemaker 
had nature to aid him ; he was short and 
stout, with a droll obliquity in one eye that 
gave a perennial comical expression to his 
countenance, and a tang to his words that 
never failed to settle Mariana's swarming 
bees. He wore the capa parda, and a very 
shabby one it was, in keeping with his cloth- 
ing and well cherished hat ; but poor and a 
commoner thou2:h he was, the other boarders 
took their cue from an intellectual superiority 
they never questioned. 

In an}^ account, however sketchy, of our 
huespedes Emilio, the dining-room boy 
must not be omitted. A little touch of 
Emilio had to be added to each diner to bring 
him into shading with the others, but if he had 
not acted as a universal blender Emilio's per- 
sonality would compel him into the relation. 
He had entire charge of the comedor, and 
kept it in a state of slovenly neatness — neat- 
ness at second hand— that reminded one of 
the mental state of Sancho Panza. At meal- 
time he brought from the kitchen knave, 
cavalier and king, as the three courses of a 



lO IN SEVILLE. 

Spanish dinner are denominated, whenever 
they were required (the service was compli- 
cated by late arrivals and went forward 
backwards), besides carrying oil, vinegar and 
salt from one end of the table to the other, 
supplying napkins, replenishing baskets of 
bread and fruit, carrying off dishes, and 
doing all in a blundering way, as if he were 
moving about in twilight, for which he re- 
ceived a suffi(-ient amount of abuse. Emilio 
was, indeed, somewhat impervious to scold- 
ings, for he was quite as full of native cun- 
ning and hereditary deference as the Squire 
in the first half of Book First. He could not 
have been more than fourteen years of age, 
though his skin-dried, colorless face, under 
a faded silk cap with a peak, would have 
suited an old man. He had spindle legs, sup- 
porting w^hat was bound, in time, to be a 
paunch, and I would like to meet Emilio 
again, in order to see if this descendant of 
the governor of Barataria fulfilled, in phys- 
ical proportions as well as in shrewdness and 
credulity, the promise of his youth. 



IN SEVILLE. 



II. 

THE calle O'Doiinell is a little street of 
Seville, very short, very narrow, and 
very quiet. For some time we held it in light 
esteem as a place for the determined sight- 
seer to escape from, but after accident had 
discovered to us that it contained within itself 
the elements of Sevillian life, the O'Donnell 
rivalled for our attention with the Mercado. 
Inapproachably picturesque had seemed to 
us the Mercado — a quaint conflux of streets 
to the east of the fashionable Sierpes — and a 
pen-and-ink sketch of it will show by con- 
trast what a pastel of the O'Donnell ought 
to be. 

The Mercado had scores of tiny shops with 
fronts to be taken out every morning, not 
much larger than those of a Moorish bazar, 
and, like them, containing merchandise of a 
surprising variety : knives and daggers, but- 
tons and beads ; rugs, carpets, rolls of cloth, 
and everything in the line of confections, from 
prunes to preserved watermelons. This old 
quarter follows the Arabian custom in group- 
ing together the shops where the same kind 
of goods is sold. There are the booths of the 
clothing-dealers, gaudy with pink, blue and 
orange vests and scarfs. There are the silk 



IN SEVILLE. 



mercers' shops, and the hardly less bright 
booths of the leather merchants, where thou- 
sands of sets of harness of every conceivable 
color for horses, mules and asses are hanging 
upon the walls. And there are the dens of 
the armorers, where all sorts of knives and 
blades and spears are kept, from the primitive 
Iberian bident — a long pole with a crescent 
of steel — to the matador's straight Toledan 
blade. 

The neighborhood of the Mercado is na- 
turally the favorite stage of street players ; 
the violin and the guitar — chiefly the guitar 
— and a concertina or two, are forever wail- 
ing there like starved kittens for food. But 
the O'Donnell, as it has less traffic and fewer 
idlers, rarely has any street players of its 
own. What music it enjoys it overhears at 
long range, from the begging musicians of 
the Plaza Magdalena, or the Plaza del Duque, 
which stop its progress north and south re* 
spectively. The shops of the O'Donnell are 
larger and emptier than the Mercado's 
booths, but it is not easy to detect differences 
between their customers, those of the O'Don- 
nell buying in as small quantities and taking 
as long a time about it as those of the Mer- 
cado. Whenever we sat behind our reja 
and ate iron, as the Sevillians say, we learned 
as much about the habits of the people as we 



IN SEVILLE. 13 

could hope to do by posting ourselves in 
the crowded and fatiguing Mercado, and 
with the advantage, not to be despised, of 
personal comfort. 

The day begins early and in the most in- 
teresting fashion. Beneath my observatory 
(the window, barred like a prison's, is scar- 
cely a man's height above the street) flows a 
stream of feminine life on its way to the mass 
in the neighboring church in the calle de las 
Armas. I can even lie in bed and count them 
as they pass— by a rosette of lace, a bit ol 
fluttering ribbon. But I despise a soul so 
sluggish. I will rise, dress myself, and lean 
gently against the iron bars. Softly as I take 
my station, still as I remain, the devotee com- 
ing towards my window knows I am there. 
Her eyes are cast down, her step demure, 
her hands folded— I regret that I am going 
to see only the top of her head — until she is 
directly beneath me. Then her hands fly 
apart, her head sways quickly back, and two 
great black eyes dip full into mine. She 
smiles maliciously, deliciously. Oh ! was I 
not right when I said she knew I was there? 
At the mouth of the O'Donnell a pastry 
cook has his shop, a fine place painted in 
yellow and blue, indigestible colors, and it 
makes an obstruction in this feminine stream 
that no woman w^ave of it can get around. 



14 IN SEVILLE. 

She is powerless to avoid drifting in there 
as in an eddy to eat a cake and hear the news. 
The woman behind the counter has a face as 
ugly as her tongue is unctuous— which is 
paying her a left-handed compliment, for no 
courtier could surpass her in flattering the 
purchasers, most of whom are evidently cus- 
tomers of long standing. 

"Ave Maria!" she cries, covering at the 
same time a cake frosted with pink and white 
sugar. '' Don't take that one, Dona Yoletta. 
Take a chocolate to deaden your own colors, 
or the men will pull this shop over my 
ears." 

''I've a message for you, madonna, from 
— the padre." 

Next she detains a well preserved beauty 
who has despatched her morning sweet. 
Then ensues a medley of whispers and 
screams, in which the cunning shopwoman 
mingles praises of the lady's beauty and enco- 
miums of her own dulces adornados. 

A more mysterious shop, one which had 
many women callers, but sent them away 
looking unhappy, kept four or live doors 
from the pasteleria. Its attractive windows 
usually displayed a fine toca or mantilla, or 
some costly trifie of lace and silk, but its 
shelves were bare. This shop was always 
open at night, and to a late hour. Often after 



IN SEVILLE. 15 

I have blown out my candle I have seen a 
light streaming through the panes. Once I 
went in to ask the price of an elaborately 
embroidered scarf which hung in the window. 
A small boneless man, looking more like 
a Burmese than a Spaniard, came forward 
with a suspicious air. He quoted an extrav- 
agant price, and without permitting me to 
examine the scarf, lifted it down and with- 
drew into the back room. A few minutes 
after he returned to hasten my departure. 
In general the noble Spaniard who keeps 
shop is indifferent whether you buy or not, 
but this one carried indifference to the ex- 
treme of Oriental contempt. I learned later 
that the suspicious little man was not a 
genuine shopkeeper, but a go-between of 
noble ladies whom poverty compelled to sur- 
render their grandmothers' laces, and other 
ladies whose ancestors had neglected to 
provide them with such feminine patents of 
nobility. 

After the religious have gone, the street, 
or that side of it which I see, falls back into 
a delicious doze, induced by the transparent 
shadows, like veils of blue tulle, blown softly 
up and down by the cool, fresh morning 
breeze. The walls directly opposite my win- 
dow rise very high ; I cannot see the sky 
above them. They have neither shape nor 



l6 IN SEVILLE. 

form, being the backs of buildings that front 
on the Sierpes, and if they ever had any char- 
acter repeated coats of lime ha\ie sunk it out 
of sight. These walls have neither windows 
nor doors, and they look as if they had been 
thrown up merely to reflect the sun dazzlingly 
in the afternoon, and in the morning to trans- 
late the indescribable transparency of the 
shadows. They have another use, it seems, 
which is to frame between them a pretty 
house with balconied windows, a street door 
having the Moorish arch, and an ogive win- 
dow on the ground-fioor. This little house 
is whitewashed also, the brown tiles of the 
roof now yellowing against the sky supplying 
the only touch of color, but it has the look of 
being happily inhabited. And presently the 
look becomes certaint}^ A pair of rounded 
arms reach forth, and hang on the iron rail- 
ing a draper}^ of crimson damask embroidered 
in gold arabesques. While I am straining 
my eyes to see through the half-open shutters 
the sun leaps down and seizes for his own the 
brilliant stuff. Instantly the O'Donnell, 
which had been state before, becomes 
pageantry. 

Breakfast-time comes and goes, the men of 
the quarter have returned to business, and 
the O'Donnell at last begins its day. Itinerant 
merchants turn the corner around the pastry 



IN SEVILLE. 17 

shop, and pass slowly up and down the street, 
■driving before them mules and asses laden 
Avith straw and charcoal, and shouting 
through raucous throats : " Paja ! paja ! 
Carbon ! Cabrito I" These men, worn by 
privation and burned by the sun, are clad in 
poor, gray garments, but their animals have 
gaudy caparisons of red or yellow cloth, 
hung about with bells, and ornamented with 
tassels and plumes. In their wake come 
fruit-venders with baskets of oranges and 
pomegranates; and as this traffic is principally 
left to women, it makes the liveliest hour of 
the morning in the O'Donnell, when cooks 
and fruit-women join battle. Scornful and 
indignant exclamations arise on every side, a 
•stifled hum floats down from the Magdalena 
Plaza, and standing at the door of our hues- 
pedes, Margarita shrieks and implores and 
dismisses her favorite market-woman all in 
one breath. 

At length the bedlam of bargaining ceases. 
The merchants have retired, and the domes- 
tics are left in possession of the street. Now 
is the opportunity of the organ players and 
mountebanks. This is the moment when 
cooks areat leisure and open-handed, as those 
should be who have gained a great battle. 

The Avomen stand in their doors, sur- 
rounded b}' their purchases, and scan the 



l8 IN SEVILLE. 

street up and down, as if inviting the players. 
Sometimes the invitation is accepted. See 
this party of two — or is it three ? — that enters 
the O'Donnell. It stops beneath my reja. 
The man throws his guitar across his arm 
and strikes a loud chord. The woman sets 
down two bundles; one of them looks as if 
it possessed life, and she unrolls and spreads 
out the other — a faded carpet — on the pave- 
ment. Then she takes up her concertina and 
accompanies her husband, while the first bun- 
dle — yes, it possesses life— begins to dance. 
Now I am glad that my window is raised the 
height of a man above the street. If it were 
lower I should see nothing, for every cuchina 
has emptied itself, and the curious crowd is 
dense indeed. Yet I see for a long time 
without comprehending. What is it that is 
dancing ? Is it an automaton ? Is it a 
human being? The music stops, with a long 
piercing note, and the dancer looks up. It 
is a female dwarf, a creature with a woman's 
face and bust, but without legs. When the 
wind of the cachucha blows out her volu- 
minous skirts, I can see that she dances on 
stumps. She looks like an evil disposed 
gnome, a descendant of the two hideous 
dwarfs in Las Meninas, and to the piece of 
money that falls on the carpet she responds 
by blowing me a repulsive kiss. 



IN SEVILLE. . I9« 

Fortune loiters in the O'Donnell to-day. 
Here comes a troop of recruits on the way 
to the Ayuntamiento. Coarse but open 
countenances these fellows have, and they 
plainly relish the sarcastic speeches that 
reach their ears from the women on either 
side. In lieu of answer, which is forbidden, 
the soldiers slyly flaunt the vulgar scarfs tied 
about their waists — a gesture which enrages 
some of the women and amuses others. A 
young officer of an aristocratic pallor and 
slimness rides a magnificent horse in front of 
the band. He looks neither to the left nor 
to the right, yet warm eyes and a flattering 
silence pursue him. A lame old man and a 
tiny boy, both enveloped in ragged garments 
varnished with dirt, come next, pushing and 
pulling a wretched little donkey packed ta 
the level of my window with household furni- 
ture. The old man, who is dripping with 
perspiration, replies bitterly to the torrent of 
female abuse showered upon him, and the 
tiny boy yells out in his childish treble a 
string of adult oaths. Three mangy dogs 
that have been driven out of the plaza del 
Duque, where they spent the night, pass fur- 
tively along in the centre of the street, in- 
creasing their pace at the cries of the 
women, and glancing up with hopeless eyes,, 
like the pariahs that they are. A stone that 



20 ■ IN SEVILLE. 

somebody throws strikes one dog. He does 
not even stop to yelp, but speeds on faster. 
A sudden silence falls on the tongues of my 
neighbors. It tells me that the frightful old 
woman, her head bound with a red handker- 
chief, now passing in the street noiselessly 
and without raising her eyes from the ground, 
is a fortune-teller. One tall girl, with defi- 
ance in her mien, runs out of a doorway and 
slips something into the old woman's lifeless 
hand. Then she retires and shuts the door 
before the flaming head-dress of this madre 
de Triana has vanished into the plaza. She 
knows that as soon as the gypsy is out of 
hearing her fellow-servants of the quarter 
will shriek with scornful laughter ; and she 
knows, too, that not one of them but has paid 
the old woman a fee for a handsome 
caballero. 

Attended by a crowd of ragged boys, 
bright eyed and rich complexioned, like 
Murillo's models, a hand-organ turns into the 
O'Donnell — a true hand-organ, rare in Seville. 
There is a clapping of hands, a cheering as 
of one woman, but, alas ! it is too late. 
Smothered commands issue from the inte- 
riors. It is time to prepare the puchero if the 
O'Donnell is to dine to-day, and the mis- 
tresses are calling in their servants. Angry, 
expostulatory, with many a backward glance. 



IN SEVILLE. 21 

the women obey ; and the grinder, who had 
already resumed position, shrugs his shoul- 
ders and wheels his organ in the direction of 
the plaza. 

A repose, a quiet that is not at all melan- 
choly, settles upon the street, out of which 
the blue shadows have long since departed. 
I perceive that the sun is shining hotly on 
the upper half of the blank wall opposite, and 
revealing, with its implacable light, green 
and iron-red crevices that were not noticeable 
before. All the cracks and discolorations of 
the painted shutters, now tightly closed, all 
the dilapidation of the tiles, the broken rails 
of the balcony in the little house that ap- 
peared but a moment since so new and pure, 
are painfully obvious now. I look to see if 
the crimson drapery has caught fire. It no 
longer hangs on the balcony. While I have 
been intent on the life below my window, the 
round arms have emerged and withdrawn 
again. 

How hot it is ! Occasionally a man or a beast 
passes in the street, but they seem like fig- 
ures in a dream. The people walking in the 
plaza resemble dark shadows floating across 
a calcium-lighted screen. The solid buildings 
opposite appear to shake and tremble in the 
furnace, and I should not be surprised to see 
their tiles fall down, their sides crumble, and 



22 IN SEVILLE. 

the red flames leap skyward. But I should 
wish to save out of the general destruction 
the pretty house I admire so much ; or if 1 
could not succeed so far, at least to rescue 
its mistress. Where is she now ? In the can- 
opied court, among palms, in a dusky golden 
green atmosphere, sunk in yellow silk cush- 
ions, and listening, with her head supported 
hy one of those pretty arms, to the ripple of 
a fountain? 

Alas ! m}^ reja is growing painfully hot to 
the touch. The sultry air hangs leaden. In 
a little while the fierce sun will enter. 

But it is hotter across the way. The sun 
lias climbed down from the upper windows 
and is licking the defaced tile-work of the 
arched door. Its burnished tongue passes 
over every rosette, into every recessed hive, 
along every stalactite of the ogive window. 
It reveals to me another row of ogives, small- 
er and behind the first, of which in shadow 
or out of the direct ray they look like the 
ornamental filling. The intruding sun throws 
them out in their true value, and I see that 
the interior row is carved in a lace-like pat- 
tern of arabesques rarer and more delicate 
than those one ma}^ run and admire. It is 
always possible to know true Arabian art, 
which spends its greatest elaboration on 
things which must be hunted for. I see also 



IN SEVILLE. 23 

that this inner row of ogives have escaped 
the whitewash brush. All that fine lacework, 
all those tiny circles and crescents and ro- 
settes, were once brilliant with pink and yel- 
low and green pigments ; they are not abso- 
lutely faded now ; indeed, they are sparkling 
at this moment, like stones which when 
dipped in water recover instantly a liquid 
freshness and brightness. 

The sun is back on the tiles ; a reddish 
shadow hangs midway between street and 
roof. The windows and doors of the O'Don- 
nell are pushed open, with one exception — 
the window I have been watching through- 
out the afternoon. From the other houses 
women come forth and seat themselves in 
doorways and balconies ; some carry rocking- 
chairs into the street ; and there, knitting, 
sewing, spinning wool, singing songs, or tel- 
ling the sins of the absent, the}^ pass the hours 
before dinner. These tertulias are made up 
of mistresses and maids, a beautiful equalit}^ 
seeming to exist among them, and white 
dresses of silk or gauze mix with print gowns 
of pink and blue. Most of these women 
show a fondness for decorating themselves 
with flowers — carnations at the throat, roses 
nestling in blue-black hair. Three or four 
domestics have Madras handkerchiefs twisted 
over their foreheads, and I can count as 



24 IN SEVILLE. 

many sefioras who wear shawls of crepe de 
Chine draped about their shoulders. The 
scene is very animated and charming, and re- 
calls Venice by its brilliancy of color, which 
is never, in general effect, loud or common- 
place. And yet the traveller who knows 
both will not liken the women of Seville to 
the women of Venice. 

I sit in my window and join fervently in 
all the gossip going. (It is dusk now in my 
chamber, and I am not obliged to conceal 
myself.) One merry nimble spirit made me 
an accessory to the crime of slandering a 
jeweller's wife who dwelt somewhere in the 
calle O'Donnell. I did not know Mrs. Jew- 
eller, and it was hardly possible that I should 
ever see her, but I drank in the evidence as 
it flowed from her accuser's ruby lips, and 
promptly judged her guilty. The crimination 
came in such liquid accents, accompanied by 
such ringings of silvery laughter, that the tale 
of Mrs. Jeweller and her swain remains a mu- 
sical memory like Parasina. Of course it was 
not so sad or so bad ; in fact, the jeweller's 
lady stood accused of nothing more serious 
than carrying on a flirtation of glances with 
the leader of the San Fernande orchestra, a 
pale handsome youth in the opposite balcony. 
But, Maria Santisinia ! she did her hair every 
day a la Franccsca, stuck a rose in it and 



IN SEVILLE. 25 

placed herself directly under his eyes. 
Were there letters between them ? Quien 
sabe ? But it was the wrong way for the 
woman to go about keeping what is sworn, 
and, por Dios, there were still unmarried 
girls in Seville ! 

The O'Donnell is left to itself. There was 
a rustling of feminine garments, a scamper 
ing of feet, good byes exchanged, as soon as 
the first grave and sober sefior turned into 
the street. He is followed by others. Heavy 
footsteps fall, and dark forms, singly or in 
groups of two and three, pass my window. 
The narrow way closes up, the houses seem- 
ing to draw closer together, as if for com- 
panionship and protection against the dread 
of night. The sky is dark blue, almost black, 
but clear and apparently very far off. Lights 
gleam in patios. The pasteleria at the corner 
is a blaze of glory ; the pawnbroker's win- 
dows throw out luring beams ; and back, 
away back, in the depths behind the ogive 
window, shines a tiny point of light like a 
cigarette. Whence the all-powerful influence 
of mystery ? As night solemnly falls in this 
quiet corner, I am filled with conjectures 
about this closed house that nevertheless is 
inhabited. A sickening thought comes. 1 
put it away, but it returns. Is it possible that 
she is Mrs. Jeweller ? 



26 IN SEVILLE. 



III. 

ADMISSION into the vie inthne of Seville 
did not immediately follow the instal- 
lation at Mariana's. For a week longer we 
strolled the streets, like the tourists we were, 
and not like the citizens we wished to be- 
come. And for a week longer the waiter of 
the Cafe Suizo served our chocolate with the 
indifference he feels for all transients. But 
a brighter day was coming, and it dawned 
rosy clear when one of us remembered 
enough of his algebra to help the cadet who 
occupied the chamber behind ours, over the 
hedge of an equation. He used to lie in bed 
to keep warm, cloak and fatigue cap on, puz- 
zling over x's and y's, and throwing dirt on 
the tomb of Algebar, who invented and gave 
his name to that branch of mathematics, 
which is the hate of all brave cadets. Out 
of gratitude the young soldier transformed 
himself into an invaluable cicerone, and it is 
but justice to say that our pleasantest adven- 
tures in Seville were due to him. He made 
Sevillian majos of us (so far as indifferent 
material permitted), and if we never leai ned 
the proper distance to follow behind a beauty 
in the paseo, if we never acquired the correct, 
stony, respectful, but burning stare, with 



IN SEVILLE. 27 

which to ogle her, it was not his fault, but our 
natural obtuseness. In other matters his 
coaching met with more success. We were 
quick to adopt the peremptory tone that 
transformed the surly camerero into a quick 
and docile servant. We comprehended the 
distinction between applause at the opera 
and applause at the salon cantante, and we 
learned a few soft musical phrases to express 
admiration, that passed current with almost 
all Spanish women. These were twice 
blessed, or at least they blessed us, for after 
we had said in effect to a lady, whom we en- 
countered at a church portal, that the mother 
of such a divinity deserved the gratitude of 
all men, we were cheered by the thought 
that we were less alien than before. 

Moreover, through walking often in com- 
pany of the senorito, the cadet, we soon had 
a bowing acquaintance with many Sevillians, 
who drove every evening in las Delicias. 
This was a tantalizing privilege, to be sure, 
and we never ventured to exert it Avhen we 
walked alone ; yet it did us no harm to hope 
that acquaintance at sight would ripen event- 
ually into something warmer. Meanwhile, 
we extended our list of male associates to 
include all our cadet's comrades, until we 
could pride ourselves that no other civilians 
had as many friends in the army. They made 



28 IN SEVILLE. 

pleasant companions, provided one lent an 
unwearied ear to the tales of love. Each 
of them had his Julita, his Martita, his 
Blanca, who was the diamond of girls. Nat- 
urally, old acquaintanceship took precedence, 
and so long- as our friend, the cadet, cared to 
discourse of his inamorita — which was just 
as many hours as were not wasted at drill or 
in the algebra demonstration room — we 
accompanied him. We burned; we froze; 
we spoke tenderly or passionately ; we re- 
proached her, we scorned her, according to 
his mood. Perhaps I should say according 
to her mood, lor the cadet's Martita was, in 
fact, a diamond of a girl, and very hard. 
Days, nay weeks, would go b3^ and she 
would respond to his letters, handed in 
hourly, not one line, not one word, nothing! 
" Yet for thy sake, proud girl, I burn triple 
candles over that accursed algebra ! If thou 
hadst not sung at the tertulia of thy aunt : 

Ni en batella el buen guerrero, 

I had not clothed myself in shackles ! " 

But next day, or as it sometimes happened, 
the same day he had given vent in reproaches 
like the above to his tortured spirit, he would 
have a different song to sing over our coffee. 
He had received a little note from her. Ah, 
3'es, it lay here (tapping his heart), it lay 



IN SEVILLE. 29 

buried here ; none but she and he would 
ever know what that sacred page contained. 
Senors, you apprehend ? The treasured 
secret of love ! Then he would take it out of 
his pocket and read it aloud, word for word. 
He would have been a dull swain, therefore, 
who, with our advantages, had not soon 
learned how to fall in love in Seville. An 
observing man will verj^ quickly discard the 
trappings that Figaro has left for amatory 
inheritance. He will break or throw away 
his guitar, and instead of clinging to an iron 
grille during the rheumatic hours of night, 
he will buy himself a pair of tight boots with 
French heels, get "new legs and lame ones." 
and spring-halt it up and down the paseo un- 
til his fancy alights. Then the very next 
step he will take — not a halt one, let us hope 
— will be to inquire out her tertulia, and gain 
admittance to it. After that the course of 
true love in Spain runs in a channel parallel 
to that of other countries. To-day, in Se- 
ville, Figaro is a barber, pure and simple. 

Most of the cadets and a few of the vouno^er 
officers, frequented the pasteleria of Juan 
Pulin, that foreigners call the Cafe Suizo, and 
there, over chocolate and pastas-sccas^ or the 
famous little rolls of Alcala, we sat manv 
long evenings that seem monotonous in ret- 
rospect. They were not so reall}^ for each 



30 IN SEVILLE. 

of US exerted himself to talk louder and faster 
than the others, and our combined lungs 
blew up a wind of interest that sent the con- 
versation craft dancing merrily between the 
ports of dinner and bed. What we talked 
about was of no consequence ; it was the 
noise we made in talking. Everything else 
in these meetings was fictitious ; our pleas- 
ure was make-believe, our excitement pre- 
tense ; only the noise was genuine, and very 
characteristic. Though it is a proverb of 
Spanish officers that they spend the time off 
duty in sleep or play, I .do not remember 
that I ever heard our friends call for the 
cards. They exhibited their proficiency by 
telling stories of exciting games, in which 
they had participated, and lost, or won pro- 
digious sums. 

When the clock struck eleven we were in 
the habit of separating, but on certain nights 
we left the pasteleriaat that hour to enter on 
the real business of the evening. This began 
by constituting ourselves into a body of special 
police, charged with the extraordinary pro- 
tection of the corregidor, the chief of the mu- 
nicipal administration. I do not know that 
he was in danger on these particular nights, 
or why, if our business respected his author- 
ity, we so carefully avoided the regular 
watchmen. These were points too fine for a 



IN SEVILLE. 31 

foreign understanding, but we comprehended 
at least, that the expedition was harmless. It 
was quite different with the majos born on 
the soil. They believed themselves beset 
with deadly perils, and their spirits rose in 
proportion as the pretence gathered reality 
from eyeless night. In and out of dark, lit- 
tle streets, avoiding the lamps at the corners, 
clustering and muttering in doorways, under 
porches and balconies, we stole from shade to 
shade like a band of Spanish Sioux. After 
an hour or two of this exciting chase after 
our own shadows, we would gravely march 
to the Niicva^ whence the rest would accom- 
pany us, Jiasta el rincoii, to the corner of our 
street, shake hands in turn and vanish. 

At the inauguration of each midnight stroll 
we hoped it would develop an adventure, 
but it never did, and when we went home^^I 
laughed at my heart for having beat a little 
faster at the setting-forth. But laugh as I 
might when safe in bed, I never failed to 
dream of Pedro the Cruel, and his bloody 
rambles. One, in particular, haunted my pil- 
loAv, for no better reason than that my own 
hand filled in the meagre outline furnished by 
the Annals of Seville. The compiler of that 
book gives in a few words the tradition to 
which a street of Seville, called Candilejo, 
owes its name. Walking there one night, 



32 I^^ SEVILLE. 

Pedro quarrelled with a man who was sere- 
nading beneath a window. They fought, and 
the king killed the amorous cavalier without 
witnesses, except an old woman, who stuck 
her head out of a window and lighted up the 
tragedy with a little lamp, candilejo, that she 
held in her hand. 

This is treating carelessly a scene which 
promises so much. Indeed, it ought to run 
like this : It is night ; the city sleeps. Enter 
Don Gomez (why conceal the name of a man 
who is soon to die?). He advances a few 
steps. " 'Tis here ; behold the house ! She is 
behind that jalousie ! " 

With nervous steps Don Gomez crosses the 
street, places himself under the window, 
takes his guitar, and begins to sing a romance 
that deals with tears, sio:hs and all that fol- 
lows. As the poetry is a little worse than 
usual, it is probably his own composition. 

At the third or fourth seguidilla the blinds 
rustle gently, and a faint cough reaches Don 
Gomez. That tells him she is listening. Hav- 
ing attained his end, Don Gomez casts aside 
the guitar and enters into a low-voiced con- 
versation with the unseen lady Don Gomez 
is full of words. He knows by heart all the 
Moresque romances, of which the Andalusian 
tongue is so rich. He is eloquent and mu- 
sical. The conversation proceeds like a song, 



IX SEVILLE. 33 

when suddenly there falls a note of discord. 
Yet to call it so is paradoxical, for the note 
comes from another guitar. The startled lov- 
ers see a man crossing- the street, wrapped in 
a mantle. He twangs the opening chord. 

"Oh, heaven I " cries the maiden. ''It is 
your rival ; it is Don Ruiz who is coming to 
serenade me. Fly, for the love you bear me, 
lest some misfortune happen to you." 

"Fly? Never!" cries Don Gomez. ''I 
should be unworth}- of 3'ou if 1 could run 
away," and, raising his voice : '' Cavalier I " 
he exclaimed to the man who continues to 
advance, '* the place is taken and this lady 
does not appreciate your music. So, if it 
pleases you, seek your happiness else- 
where." 

" Who dares advise me ? " cries the new 
comer. " Rash youth, retire and yield the 
place ! " 

"I will not yield to any man," cries Don 
Gomez. 

*' Not even to " mutters the other, with- 
out completing his sentence, except to drop 
his mantle and reveal his face. 

Don Gomez recoils a pace ; nevertheless, 
he repeats stoutly : " Not even to my king ! " 

Enough had been said, and the swords 
were out. The king was adroit, and besides 
he had in his left hand an iron shield, behind 



34 IN SEVILLE. 

which he sheltered his body, while Don 
Gomez had only his sword and mantle. He 
defended himself with grace, and tried all the 
expedients known to good swordsmen to 
force his opponent's guard. At one moment 
it seemed as if he would succeed in gliding 
his sword underneath the king's shield, but 
the heavy iron came down and dashed his 
weapon to the ground, while Pedro's sword 
penetrated his side with such force that the 
point broke after entering a hand's length. 
Don Gomez uttered a groan and fell bathed 
in his blood. 

At that moment the watch was heard ap- 
proaching. The king rose, threw aside the 
sword, picked up the guitar, and spurning 
his victim from the path with the words,. 
" So perish all who cross my love ! " he made 
off in the opposite direction. 

And the lady ? It is not certain there was 
any lady concerned ; the Aimals of Seville 
mention an old woman merely. It is curious 
to note that in my dreams it was always the 
old woman who came. At first I paid her 
no particular attention, for, when the dream 
began haunting, I took an active part, alter- 
nately playing the bloody Pedro and the ill- 
starred lover. But as time went on and our 
nocturnal strolls remained nocturnal strolls 
and nothing more, I grew less and less able 



IN SEVILLE. ^^ 

to play a leading ro/r, and since it seemed 
equally impossible to retire from the stage 
altogether, the night finally fell when I acted 
the old woman holding up the little lamp. 



IV. 

BUT Pedro is not the glory of Seville. 
Not even a city which has no military 
history would exalt a coward to this place, 
and the large class of Sevillians — and other 
people — that can respect a man who* offsets 
turpitude with audacity, turn from Don 
Pedro to Don Juan when they crown the 
hero of Seville. But lived there ever a man 
who deserved to be called Don Juan, with 
all that name now implies ? 

Or is Don Juan a myth? Call him so if 
you wish to throw dirt on the city of Seville, 
but do it from the plain outside her walls, 
for if you once go within, you will remain to 
believe. The people can show you the monu- 
ments of not one merely, but two Don Juans. 
They can point out the houses where they 
lived and where they died ; they can carry 
you to the graves of both. How can you 
scoff after that ? 

Seville has two Juans in her legends, be- 
cause it is impossible to fit them all to one 



36 IN SEVILLE. 

man. Rejecting the grossest anachronisms, 
one has left a vast quantity of material out ot 
which to construct two such superior beings, 
Don Juan Tenorio and Don Juan de Mafiara. 
The common people regard them as one per- 
son, but the guides, in the interest of trade, 
preserve a distinction. They show you the 
house of Tenorio, now the property of the 
nuns of San Leandro, and they cause you to 
read in la Caridad the ostentatiously humble 
inscription on the tomb of Manara: "Here are 
the ashes of the wickedest man in the world." 
The guides then cease to make fine dis- 
tinctions, and relate stories which may belong 
to one or the other — you may take your 
choice — of how Don Juan made strange 
propositions to La Giralda, the bronze statue 
that surmounts the Moresque tower of the 
Cathedral, and how La Giralda accepted 
them ; how Don Juan, walking warm with 
wine, on the left bank of the Guadalquivir, 
demanded a light of a man smoking a cigar 
on the right bank ; how the smoker, who was 
no other than the devil in person, extended 
his arm farther and farther, until it stretched 
across the river, and presented his weed to 
Don Juan, and how that viauvais snjct, after 
lighting his own cigar, returned His Maj- 
esty's, with a careless " Thank you," and 
passed on. 



IN SEVILLE. 37 

Many tales are related of the childhood 
and youth of Don Juan de Manara (these 
M. de Latour has agreeably collated), while 
of Tenorio, at a tender age, whom it is easy 
to suspect for that reason, of being a common 
plagiarist, legend is dumb. 

The charm of these stories consists in their 
fidelity to nature and to the epoch. They 
form a solid foundation capable of support- 
ing a complicated structure in the style of 
the Arabesque. Out of them the genius of 
Prosper Merimee constructed his famous 
story, which is condensed in the following 
narrative : 

Don Juan, so called, although he had been 
christened Manuel, was born at Seville, 
about the year 1622. This makes him by 
four years the junior of Murillo. whom he 
afterwards employed to embellish his chapel 
of repentance. He was the son who arrived 
late to delight the heart of a hero of the 
Moorish wars, Don Carlos de Manara. 

Spoiled by father and mother, as became 
the sole heir of a famous name and a great 
fortune, Don Juan, from infancy, was abso- 
lute master of his own actions. In his father's 
palace no one had the hardihood to correct 
him. The parents, indeed, took some pains 
to educate him, but their methods were con- 
flicting. 



38 IN SEVILLE. 

The mother wished her son to be devout, 
like herself, and by caressing him and stuff- 
ing him with sweets, she persuaded the child 
to learn litanies, rosaries, and, in fact, all 
the obligatory and non-obligatory pra^-ers. 
On his part, the father taught Don Juan 
the romances of the Cid and Bernardo del 
Carpio ; related to him the revolt of the 
Moors and encouraged him to exercise him- 
self all day hurling the javeline, firing the 
cross-bow, or even the arquebus at a manna- 
kin dressed like a Moor, which he had set up 
in his garden. 

The same diversity appeared in the fur- 
nishing each gave Don Juan when at his 
eighteenth year they sent him to school, at 
Salamanca. His mother gave him chaplets, 
scapularies and blessed medals. Don Carlos 
gave him a sword with a hilt damaskeened 
in silver and engraved with the arms of his 
family. The event proved the superior use- 
fulness of his father's gift. Salamanca at 
that period resembled, it should seem, a 
camp full of swaggering soldiers, rather than 
a peaceful university, presided over by 
learned priests. As for the unhappy city 
which gave its name to the institution, 
it was absolutely dominated by the insolent 
and undisciplined students. By day they 
ran from shop to shop, seizing whatever took 



IN' SEVILLE. 39 

their fancy and makings a promise to pay 
which was rarely kept, and by night their 
serenades, charivaries. abductions, robberies 
and duels prevented the citizens from sleep- 
ing, except in cat-naps. 

At first it seemed likely that his mother's 
teaching would influence Don Juan. Upon 
arriving at Salamanca, he went to all the 
churches, and asked the guardians to show 
him tlie sacred relics. 

Unfortunately for relig-ion, it was in one of 
the holy edifices that he met the leader of 
the wild set who ruled the city. 

The name of the student was Don Garcia 
Navarro, with the qualification " of the short 
patience and the long sword." An edif3'ing 
figure was Don Garcia when Juan first saw 
him. He was kneeling before a chapel, in 
the midst of a circle of the faithful. Don 
Juan had made his prayer, and about to rise 
from his knees, when he perceived that his 
neighbor, a handsome, well made youth, who 
had been there when he came, still appeared 
to be plunged in a devout ecstacy. A little 
ashamed of having ended so soon, Don Juan 
began to recite as many litanies as he could 
remember. His mother had taken care that 
they sh(^uld be numerous, and Don Juan oc- 
cupied considerable time in dispatching them. 
But his pious neighbor had not budged. 



40 IN SEVILLE. 

Weary of emulating this endless orison, 
the young Count was preparing to move off, 
when the devout caught him by the cloak, 
and whispered, with his eyes still cast down, 
" Sefior student, you are a new comer 
amongst us, but your name is well known to 
me. Our fathers once were good friends, 
and, if you permit, their sons will not be 
less." 

A few words sufficed to introduce the 
young men to each other. Don Juan was 
fascinated by the other's politeness, and felt 
all the more drawn to Don Garcia when that 
young gentleman, without wasting time, di- 
rected him to look towards three women who 
knelt apart on a strip of Turkey carpet. One 
oi them, gray haired and wrinkled, could be 
no other than a duenna. The other two 
were young and pretty, and did not keep 
their gaze so low on their beads that Juan 
could not see how black their eyes were, how 
soft and yet how lively. 

*' Do you see the senorita, with a chaplet 
of yellow amber? " muttered Don Garcia, as 
if still at his prayers. 

" That is Dona Teresa de Ojeda ; the 
other is her elder sister, Dona Fausta. 
They are the daughters of an auditor of the 
Council of Castile. I am making up to the 
elder; do you try your luck with Teresa. 



IN SEVILLE. 41 

Come," he added, " they are rising and going- 
out of church. Let us hasten in order to see 
them mount into the carriage. Perhaps the 
wind may raise their basquinas and show us 
a pretty leg or two." 

Such was Don Juan's meeting with Don 
Garcia and with Teresa, both of whom were 
intimately connected with the succeeding 
events of his life. Don Garcia found Juan 
an apt pupil, and the two young men, after a 
month's serenading under the window of 
their mistresses, succeeded in obtaining a 
rendezvous on the banks of the river Tormes. 
Dona Teresa took Don Juan's hand and 
Dona Fausta that of Garcia. As long as the 
sisters could remain, the two couples prom- 
enaded and then separated with the promise 
not to let escape a single opportunity of see- 
ing each other. And they kept their word 
so well that before Don Juan had sojourned 
three months at Salamanca poor Teresa 
had given him indubitable proofs of love. 
Don Garcia had the same gift from her 
sister. 

At first Don Juan loved his mistress with 
the feverish passion of a youth for the first 
woman who gives herself to him, but Don 
Garcia demonstrated that constancy was a 
common-place virtue, and at last the two 
students agreed so w^ell on this point that 



42 IN SEVILLE. 

one evening they sat down to play, having- 
their mistresses for the stakes. Garcia wa- 
gered Dona Fausta; Teresa was Juan's 
wager. Don Juan won. 

Accordingly he ordered Don Garcia to 
draw a note of hand on Dona Fausta, enjoin- 
ing her to put herself at the bearer's dis- 
position, exactly as he might have ordered 
his banker to pay a hundred ducats to one 
of his creditors. This order Juan pre- 
sented to Dona Fausta the same night, not 
without trepidation. She read it quickly, 
and at first did not comprehend what it 
meant. She read it again, and could not 
believe her eyes. Don Juan watched her 
closely. Fausta wiped her forehead, rubbed 
here3'es; her lips trembled, a mortal pallor 
spread over her visage, and she was obliged 
to clutch the paper with both hands to keep 
from dropping it. Finally, commanding her- 
self by a desperate effort, she cried : 

'* All this is false ! It is a horrible lie ! 
Don Garcia never wrote it ! " 

Don Juan replied : 

" You know his writing. He does not 
appreciate the treasure he possesses, but I - 
I accepted, because I adore you." 

She threw him a glance of profound con- 
tempt and reperused the paper. From time 
to time a great tear escaped and glided, un- 



IN SEVILLE. 43 

noticed, down her cheek. Then she smiled 
wildly and exclaimed : 

•* It is a jest; is it not? Don Garcia is out- 
side ; he is going to come in ? " 

'' It is no jest, Dona Fausta, I swear by the 
love I bear you. I shall be very unhappy if 
you will not believe me." 

" Teresa — my sister ! " gasped Fausta. 

" 1 never loved her." Don Juan replied. 

'' Wretch ! " she cried "if what you tell me 
is true, you are a greater villain than Don 
Garcia." 

" Love pardons all, beautiful Faustita. Don 
Garcia abandons you ; he is your false The- 
seus; let me be your Bacchus." 

Without a word she seized a knife from 
the table and advanced menacing Don Juan. 
He had seen the movement, caught her hand 
and disarmed her. Fausta had recourse to 
screams. She filled the house with her cries. 

Don Juan now thought but of escape. He 
tried to gain the door, but Fausta interposed. 
She was bent on punishing him. And now 
alarming noises began to be heard; slamming 
doors, rushing feet and voices of men. Don 
Juan had not an instant to loose. He made 
an effort to hurl Dona Fausta far from him, 
but she had seized his arm with a grasp im- 
possible to shake off. She redoubled her cries. 
At that instant the door w^as thrown open and 



44 IN SEVILLE. 

a man holding an arquebus appeared on the 
threshold. He uttered an imprecation and 
fired. The lamp went out and Don Juan felt 
Fausta's grasp relax while something warm 
and liquid bathed his hands. Fausta fell or 
rather glided to the floor. Don Alonzo had 
killed his daughter instead of her ravisher. 
Under cover of the smoke from the arquebus 
Don Juan leaped towards the staircase. In 
the hall he received a blow from the father's 
weapon and a sword cut from a lackey. 
Neither injured him much. Sword in hand 
he sought to extinguish the flambeau the lack- 
ey carried and cut a passage out. The ser- 
vant rapidly gave way ; not so Alonzo de 
Ojeda, a man ardent and intrepid in spite of his 
years. He precipitated himself on Don Juan 
and thrust at him with his sword. Don Juan 
parried several strokes and no doubt he sought 
only to defend himself, but his skill was great, 
and soon Fausta's father heaved a great sigh 
and fell mortally wounded. Don Juan darted 
down the staircase and into the street with- 
out being pursued by the domestics, who had 
gathered round their expiring master. But 
he did not escape without being recognized 
by Teresa. Roused by the noise of the arque 
bus, she had arrived in time to witness the 
duel between Don Juan and Don Alonzo, and 
she had fallen senseless beside her father's 



IN SEVILLE. 45 

body. The wretched girl knew but the half 
of her unhappiness. 

Don Juan was justified in thinking there 
was nothing to detain him longer in Sala- 
manca. He determined to abandon Minerva 
for Mars. "To Flanders!" he cried; "to 
the wars in Flanders ! I will go to kill here- 
tics. In that way and quickly I shall bury 
my peccadilloes." He promptly put off his 
student habit never to be resumed. In its 
stead he put on an embroidered leather vest 
such as was worn at that time by the soldiers, 
a great splash hat, and he did not forget to line 
his belt with as many doubloons as he could 
borrow. Then he took the road on foot, left 
the city without being recognized and 
marched all night and all the following morn- 
ing, till the heat of the sun obliged him to give 
over. 

At the first village he bought a horse and 
joining a caravan of merchants, he safely 
reached Saragossa. Here he rested only long 
enough to pay his devotions to Our Lady of 
the Pillar, to ogle the Arragonese beauties 
and provide himself with a domestic. Then 
he made his way to Barcelona, where he em- 
barked for Civita Vecchia. Fatigue, sea-sick- 
ness, new faces and the natural lightness of. 
Juan's mind, all united to make him forget 
the horrible scene he had left behind. In 



46 IN SEVILLE, 

enjoying- the pleasures of Italy, he neglected 
for some months the principal end of his voy- 
age, but funds commenced to fail him, and he 
joined a party of compatriots, brave and light 
of purse like himself, and they took the route 
for Germany. 

Arrived at Brussels Don Juan entered the 
company of an Andalusian captain, who, 
charmed with his graceful air, treated him 
well and according to his taste, that is to say, 
he employed him on all perilous occasions. 
Fortune favored Don Juan, and on the day he 
won an ensign, he avowed his true name and 
recommenced his former life. He passed his 
days drinking and his nights serenading the 
prettiest women of Brussels. He had received 
pardon from his parents and letters of credit 
on some bankers of Antwerp. He put the 
latter to good use. Young, rich, brave and 
handsome, his conquests were numerous and 
rapid. Nothing would be gained by recount- 
ing them in detail ; it should suffice the reader 
to know that when he saw a pretty woman 
all means to obtain her seemed good in the 
eyes of Don Juan. Promises, oaths and vows 
were the jests of this unworthy libertine, and 
if brother or husband called him to account 
for his conduct, he had wherewithal to re- 
spond to them — a good sword and a pitiless 
heart. After a single campaign his compan- 



IN SEVILLE. 47 

ions were wont to refer to Don Juan as the 
youngster " who had put more men to death 
and more women to worse than death, than 
two Cordeliers or two bravos of Valence." 

In the midst of this debauchery the news 
came that his mother and father were dead» 
His seniors advised him to return to Spain 
and take possession of his majority and the 
vast wealth he had inherited. This advice 
accorded with Don Juan's own wish. Long 
since he had obtained grace for the murder 
of Teresa's father, Don Alonzo de Ojeda, and 
he regarded that affair as entirely forgotten. 
Above all, he had a strong desire to exercise 
his peculiar talents on a larger theatre. He 
rolled on his mind the delights of Seville, and 
the numerous fair women who were only 
waiting his return, doubtless, to abandon dis- 
cretion. So doffing the cuirass, he set out for 
Spain. At Madrid he broke his journey, had 
himself remarked at a bull-fight for the ex- 
traordinary richness of his costume and made 
some conquests, but he did not remain long 
there. He hurried on to Seville, where he had 
no sooner arrived than he astonished little and 
great by his ostentation and magnificence. 

Every day he gave a feast to which he in- 
vited the most beautiful ladies of Andalusia. 
Each day saw new pleasures, new extravagan- 
ces, new orgies organized in his family palace. 



48 IN SEVILLE. 

He became king of a crowd of libertines who 
obeyed him with a docility like that often 
found in the associations of criminals. There 
w^as no debauch in which Don Juan feared to 
plunge, and as a vicious rich man cannot be 
dangerous to himself alone^ his example per- 
verted the Andalusian youth who took him 
for their model. An illness which kept Don 
Juan in bed for a few days failed to inspire 
him with repentance. He merely command- 
ed his doctor to restore him to health for the 
avowed purpose of running into new excesses. 
During his convalescence, Don Juan amused 
himself by drawing up a list of all the women 
he had conquered and all the husbands he 
had deceived. He divided the list methodic- 
ally into two columns. In one he^ wrote the 
names of the women and their summary ; in 
the other the names of the husbands and their 
professions. He had much trouble to remem- 
ber the names of his victims and he regretted 
that the catologue was far from being perfect. 
One day Juan showed this list to a friend who 
was visiting him; and as in Italy he had en- 
joyed the favor of a woman who boasted of 
being the mistress of a pope, the list com- 
menced with her name, while that of the pope 
headed the column of husbands. Then came 
a reigning prince, then dukes, marquises and 
so on down even to artisans. 



IN SEVILLE. 49 

" Nobody has escaped me ! " cried Don 
Juan; ''from a pope to a shoemaker. Not 
one class of society but has furnished its 
quota." 

His friend examined the catalogue and re- 
turned it, saying in a triumphant tone : 

" It is not complete !" 

" How ! Not complete ? Who is wanting 
in my list of husbands?" 

*' God,'' said the other. 

" God ? It is true, there is no nun here. I 
thank you for showing me where it lacked. 
Ah, well ! I swear to you on my honor as a 
gentleman — in what convent of Seville are 
there pretty nuns?" 

A few days later Don Juan was in the 
country. He began to frequent the convents 
in the vicinity of Seville. Kneeling very 
close to the lattice which separated the 
brides of the Savior from the rest of the faith- 
ful, he threw ferocious glances on the timid 
virgins, like a wolf in a sheep-fold who seeks 
for the plumpest lamb to devour it first. He 
soon remarked, in the church of Our Lady 
of the Rosary, a young nun of ravishing 
beauty, which was rendered more noticeable 
by an air of melancholy like a thin veil drawn 
over every feature. She never raised her 
€yes nor turned them to the left or right. She 
seemed entirely absorbed in the divine mysterj^ 



50 IN SEVILLE. 

celebrated before her. Her lips moved qmckly 
and it was easy to see that she prayed with 
more fervor and unction than her compan- 
ions. The sight of her recalled to Don Juan 
old memories. It seemed to him he had seen 
this woman somewhere, but it was impossi- 
ble to recall time or place. So many por- 
traits were engraved more or less deeply on 
his memory that confusion was a necessity. 
Day after day he returned to the church and 
took the same place near the lattice without 
succeeding in making Sister Agatha raise her 
eyes. This he had learned was the yourg^ 
nun's spiritual name. But the difficulty of 
triumphing over a person so well guarded by 
her position and by her modesty, only served 
to inflame the desires of Don Juan. His van^ 
ity persuaded him that if he could fipd a way 
to draw Sister Agatha's eyes upo'n him, the 
victory would be half gained. This is the 
expedient by which he attracted her atten- 
tion. One day he placed himself as near her 
as possible, and, profiting by the moment of 
the elevation of the Host when every body 
was prostrate, he passed his hand between, 
the bars of the lattice and emptied before 
Sister Agatha the contents of a vial of per- 
fume. The pentrating odor which suddenly 
enveloped her constrained the young nun to 
raise her head. As Don Juan had placed him- 



IN SEVILLE. 51 

self directly in fron^ of her she could not fail 
to see him. At first a wild astonishment 
pictured itself on her features ; then she grew 
deathly pale ; she uttered a feeble cry and 
fell fainting on the flags. Her companions 
pressed around her and bore her to her cell. 
Don Juan, retiring very much pleased with 
himself, thought : '' This nun is truly charm- 
ing, but the oftener I see her, the more I 
am convinced that she already figures in 
my catalogue." 

Next day at church,. a note was handed to^ 
him. It read: " Is it you, Don Juan? Is it 
true that you have not forgotten me? I have 
been very unhappy, but 1 was growing recon- 
ciled to my fate. I am going to be an hundred 
times more unhappy now. I ought to hate 
you, you who spilled the blood of my father, 
but I cannot hate you or forget you. Have 
pity on me. Come no more to this church ; 
you do me too much harm. Adieu, adieu, I 
am dead to the world. Teresa." 

''Ah! it is Teresita?" exclaimed Don Juan 
when he had read it. *' I knew I had seen her 
somewhere." 

Whoever has read so far in this edifying 
history knows its hero too well to imagine 
that he obeyed Teresa's piteous prayer and 
refrained from his pursuit. He went the 
next day and the next, and so often to the 



52 IN SEVILLE. 

church that Teresa's last feeble resistance of 
the man she had ever tenderly loved was 
broken down. At the end of some days she had 
no more force left to struggle. She announced 
to Don Juan that she was ready for all, and, at 
the height of joy he prepared for her escape. 
He chose a moonless night. He smuggled into 
Teresa's cell a silken ladder with which to 
scale the walls of the convent. A package con- 
taining a street costume was hidden in a 
corner of the convent garden. Don Juan 
himself was to wait for her at the foot of the 
wall. At some distance a litter drawn by 
vigorous mules would be in readiness to carry 
Teresa rapidly to his country house. Don 
Juan neglected nothing that could insure the 
success of the abduction. 

The chosen night came. Don Juan gave 
the necessary orders to his domestics for 
Teresa's reception, and set out alone and on 
foot for Seville in the great heat of the day, 
so that he would not arrive there before 
nightfall. In fact, it was black night when 
he passed near the Torre del Oro, where 
a servant awaited him. He asked if the litter 
and mules were at their place. All was ready. 
His instructions had been followed to the 
letter. There only remained an hour to 
elapse before giving the signal agreed upon 
with Teresa. Don Juan covered himself with 



IN SEVILLE. 53 

a great brown mantle, and keeping his face 
concealed so as not to be recognized, he 
entered Seville by the gate of Triana. 

Heat and fatigue forced him to sit down in 
a deserted street. There he began to hum 
the airs that came into his head. From time 
to time he consulted his watch, and saw with 
chagrin that the hands advanced slower than 
his impatience. 

Suddenly a solemn and lugubrious music 
struck upon his ear. He recognized the 
chant that the church had consecrated to 
burials. Soon a procession turned the corner 
of the street and came towards him. It 
advanced slowly and gravely. No footfall 
sounded on the pavement, and it seemed to 
Don Juan that each figure glided rather than 
walked. At this spectacle Don Juan ex- 
perienced, at first, that species of disgust the 
idea of death inspires in an epicurean. He 
rose and was about to withdraw, but the 
great number of penitents and the pomp of 
the cortege surprised him and piqued his 
curiosity. As the procession was entering 
the door of a neighboring church Don Juan 
caught one of the persons who carried the 
candles by the arm and asked him politely 
whom they were burying. The penitent 
lifted his head ; his face w^as pale and haggard 
like that of a man but just risen from a sick 



54 IN SEVILLE. 

bed. He replied in a sepulchral voice : " It 
is the Count Don Juan de Mafiara." 

When Juan heard his own name pronounced, 
he felt the hair starting on his head. But the 
instant after he recovered his mocking smile, 
and followed the procession into the church. 
The funeral chant re-commenced, accompa- 
nied by the roll of the organ, and the priests 
began to intone the de profiindis. Despite his 
efforts to appear calm, Don Juan felt his blood 
congealing. He approached another penitent 
and demanded : 

" Who is the dead man whom they are 
burying ? " 

" The Count Don Juan de Maiiara," replied 
the penitent, in a voice hoarse and ominous. 
Don Juan seized a pillar to keep from falling. 
Finally he made a grand effort, and caught 
the hand of a priest who passed near him. 
This hand was cold like marble. 

'' In the name of Heaven, my father," cried 
he, '■*■ who are you, and for whom are you 
praying? " 

'* We pray for the soul of Count Don Juan 
de Mafiara," responded the priest, fixing him 
with a dolorous look. 

At this moment the church clock sounded. 
It was the hour fixed for Teresa's abduction. 

'' The name, the name again ! " gasped Don 
Juan. The priest replied still more sadly: 



IN SEVILLE. 55 

" The Count Don Juan de Manara." 

" Jesu ! " cried Don Juan, and fell senseless 
on the pavement. 

Night was far advanced when the Avatch 
passing perceived the body of a man stretched 
across the portal of the church. The archers 
lifted him up, supposing it was the corpse of 
an assassinated man. 

They soon recognized the Count de Manara, 
and they threw cold water in his face and 
sought to re-animate him, but seeing that he 
did not recover, they bore him to his house. 
Some said he was drunk, others that he had 
received a jealous husband's blows. No one, 
or, at least, no honest man in Seville loved 
him, and each person had his say. Don Juan' s 
servants received their master from the hands 
of the archers and ran to fetch a surgeon. 
They bled him abundantly, and presently he 
came to himself. At first, however, he only 
littered words without meaning, inarticulate 
cries, sobs and groans. Little by little he 
began to consider attentively all the objects 
about him. He asked where he was and how 
he came there. Then, having drank a cor- 
dial, he made them fetch him a crucifix and 
he kissed it for a long time and bathed it in 
a torrent of tears. Next he begged them to 
bring him a confessor. 

Don Juan had been frightened almost to 



56 IN SEVILLE. 

death. But he did not die. A few para- 
graphs farther on you will see that he made^ 
some years after having attended his own 
funeral, a gratifying and exemplary end. 
Indeed, his conversion began with the arri- 
val of the confessor, at whose feet Don Juan 
threw himself, related the vision of the night 
before and offered confession. The Domin- 
ican exhorted him to persevere in his re- 
pentance and administered the consolation 
religion does not refuse to the greatest crim- 
inal. He promised to return in the evening 
and retired. 

When the father returned Don Juan an- 
nounced that he had formed a resolution to 
retire from a world where he had given rise 
to so much scandal (Don Juan's own words) 
and he had determined to exit in a thorough- 
going manner consistent with his rapid pace 
in wicked courses. -;. To accomplish this he 
gave half of his fortune to his relatives, who 
were not rich ; another part he consecrated 
to building a chapel and to found a hospital, 
while he distributed the remainder among the 
poor. 

Before entering the convent he had chosen 
lor his retreat, Juan wrote to Teresa. In 
this letter he disclosed his shameful purpose, 
recounted his life and conversion, and de- 
manded her pardon. Last he entreated her 



IN SEVILLE. 57 

to follow his example and save her soul by 
repentance. This letter he confided to the 
Dominican after having read it to him. When 
Teresa read it she cried: "He never loved 
me!" A burning fever raged in the unhappy 
ofirl's veins, inflamed bv the anxietv she felt at 
Don Juan's failure to release her from the con- 
vent or to explain the reason of his absence. In 
vain the succors of medicine and religion were 
offered her ; she repulsed the one and ap- 
peared insensible to the other. She died after 
some days which she had spent in delirium, 
exclaiming constantly : "He never loved me ! " 
And now behold two years later Don Juan, 
or brother Ambrose, tonsured and garbed in 
black. Behold also, his life which was an un- 
interrupted exercise of piety and mortification. 
The recollection of his sins (so aver the devout 
Sevillians) was always present with him, but 
his remorse was tempered by the quietude of 
an approving conscience. One day, at noon- 
tide, when the heat makes itself felt most 
oppressively, all the brothers of the convent 
were reposing according to custom. Brother 
Ambrose alone worked in the garden, bare- 
headed in the sun, one of his self-imposed 
penances. Absorbed in his task he scarcely 
perceived the shadow of a man which fell 
across him. He thought it was one of the 
monks who had descended into the garden, 



58 IN SEVILLE. 

and without looking up he saluted him with 
'' Ave Maria." There was no response. 
Surprised at this motionless shadow, he raised 
his eyes and saw before him a tall young man, 
his form covered by a mantle which fell to 
the earth, and his face half hidden beneath 
the white and black plumes of his hat. This 
man contemplated brother Ambrose in silence, 
with an expression made up of malignant joy 
and profound contempt. For some moments 
they looked into each others' eyes. Then the 
stranger, advancing a step and throwing back 
his hat to show his features, said : 

" Do you recognize me ? " 

The monk gave a negative sign. The stran- 
ger pursued coldly. " I have a name as well 
as you, Don Juan, and a better memory. My 
name is Don Pedro de Ojeda ; I am the son 
of Don Alonzo de Ojeda, whom you mur- 
dered. I am the brother of Dona Fausta de 
Ojeda, whom you murdered. I am the 
brother of Dona Teresa de Ojeda, whom you 
murdered." 

Don Juan trembled. ** My brother," said 
he, gently, " I am a wretch covered with 
crimes. To expiate them I have renounced 
the world, and donned this habit. If there is 
any way to obtain your pardon indicate it. 
The rudest penance will not frighten me, if 
thereby I can avert your curse." 



IN SEVILLE. 59 

Don Pedro smiled drily, 

" Give over hypocrisy, Sefior de Manara; 
I do not pardon. My curse is yours already, 
but my patience is too short to await its 
effect. I bear on me something more effica- 
cious than curses." 

With these words he threw his mantle 
open, disclosing two long rapiers. He drew 
the foils and planted both in the earth. 

" Choose, Don Juan," said he. " They say 
you are expert. Let us see what you can 
do." 

Don Juan made the sign of the cross and 
answered : " INI}' brother, you forget the vows 
I have taken. I am no longer the Don Juan 
you knew; I am brother Ambrozo." 

" Brother Ambrozo, if you will. You are 
my enemy, and, under an}- name, you owe 
me vengeance." 

Speaking thus, he pushed the priest rudely 
against the wall. 

*' Senor Pedro de Ojeda I " cried Don 
Juan, " kill me, if you will ; I shall not tight." 
He folded his arms and regarded Den P - c dro 
with a calm but intrepid air. 

" Yes ; I will kill you, assassin, but first I 
shall treat you like the coward you are." 
He gave him a buffet, the first Don Juan had 
ever received. Don Juan's face flamed to a 
purple red. The rage and fury of his youth 



6o IN SEVILLE. 

rekindled in his soul. Without a word, he 
threw himself on one of the swords. Don 
Pedro took the other and stood on guard. 
Both attacked with the same fury and the 
same impetuosity. Don Pedro's sword lost 
itself in the woolen robe of Don Juan, and 
failed to find his body, while that of the 
monk forced itself up to the hilt in the breast 
of his adversary. Don Pedro fell bleeding to 
the ground. 

For a long time Don Juan stood gazing 
with a stupefied air at his enemy extended at 
his feet. As he came to himself, he recog- 
nized the enormity of this new crime. He 
fell on the corpse and sought to recall it to 
life. But Don Juan had seen too many 
Avounds to doubt for a moment that this was 
mortal. The dripping sword lay near and 
offered a way of escape. Fleeing this temp- 
tation of Satan, he ran to the Superior, and 
bursting into a torrent of tears, related to 
him the terrible scene just passed. The 
Superior was a man noted for presence of 
mind. He comprehended at once what 
scandal would refiect on the convent if this 
adventure were made public. Nobody had 
seen the duel, and by acting promptly he 
might keep it even from the members of the 
brotherhood. Aided by Don Juan, he trans- 
ported the corpse into an underground hall. 



IN SEVILLE. 6 1 

of which he took the key. Then the Superior 
ordered brother Ainbrozo into his cell, and 
went and consulted with the Corregidor of 
Seville. The story was given out that the 
dead man had fought a duel with an un- 
known cavalier, and had staggered into the 
convent to die. 

So ends the last story of Don Juan that 
deals with fire and sword. The remainder of 
his life flowed on like a calm stream between 
banks covered with the sad flowers of melan- 
choly and repentance. 

Never again did it overflow its banks, 
swelled by a return of the freshet of youth. 
For ten years longer Don Juan lived in the 
cloister, and he died venerated as a saint 
even by those who ha d suffered from his 
early errors. On his death-bed he begged, 
as a last favor, that they would bury him 
beneath the threshold of the church, that all 
who entered might soil him with their feet. 
He also wished them to engrave this inscrip- 
tion on his tomb : Cenizas del peor hombre que 
ha habido en el Mtuido. But the executors of 
his wishes judged too tenderly to carry out 
in full the dispositions dictated by his excess- 
ive humility. They buried him in the 
capillo mayor of the chapel he had founded. 
They consented to engrave on the stone 
which covered his mortal tenement the 



62 IN SEVILLE. 

epitaph he had composed, but they softened 
this also, by adding- a recital of the facts of 
his miraculous conversion. 



V. 



IN the prize ring of my mind Honesty and 
Banter have been fighting out a round. It 
is over. Honesty is under the rope, and as a 
result, a countryman in authority at Seville, 
during our sojourn there, is compelled to sit 
for his portrait. With the best intentions, I 
cannot keep him out of these pages. He is 
my King Charles' head, and, withal, a figure 
so queer, antic and laughable, that 1 may 
write of him without travesty, easing my 
conscience by doubting, if, as an original odd- 
ity, he is his own property. 

Some trifle that I have forgotten took us 
to call on this official the day after we 
arrived, a trifle that seemed imperative, 
when we were told that his office lay close 
by, in a hotel across the square. We went 
over, and were shown into a small room on 
the ground floor, which contained the air of 
liberty. As the windows looked out on the 
sunny Plaza Nuova, the air of liberty was 
very hot and close. 



IN SEVILLE. 6$ 

We waited here a half hour, when the 
official opened the door and paused on the 
threshold to throw us a searching glance 
before entering. In turn we examined him. 
His figure was tall and thin ; his complexion 
purple and mottled ; his hair and beard sandy 
gray ; in fine, at the moment of entrance he 
looked more like a spruce Castilian than a 
fellow citizen ; so much so that we began 
making mental grasps at Spanish words of 
salutation. But the next moment we saw 
that this was only an imitation Spaniard ; 
the spruce, stiff manner sat uneasily upon 
him, his walk was a combination of shuffle 
and strut — an inferior copy of the dignified 
Spanish stride. He seemed to feel that the 
performance was a caricature, for he stopped 
half way, gave a little " hem ! " and then 
came forward, fastening with nervous fingers 
the hooks into the eyes of the imaginary con- 
sular garment. It would be difficult to imi- 
tate the magnificence he threw into the 
greeting. "Take seats," he said, but his 
tone meant " kneel." 

When he spoke again it was with a new 
voice, a querulous, nasal " down East " voice, 
but with the English inflection — a marvelous 
combination which must be heard to be ap- 
preciated. This whimsical voice was pecu- 
liarly adapted for complaints about Spanish 



64 IN SEVILLE. 

hotels, Spanish servants, and Spanish life in 
general. I supposed it was the little difficulty 
we had brought to his notice which set him 
off, but I soon learned that condemnation of 
everything Spanish was a favorite course 
with him. A little later he took on the 
patronizing speech of an old traveler, and 
later still he resumed the Spanish grandilo- 
quence which was so foreign to his tongue. 
We were puzzled to decide which were his 
natural accents, and yet he was the same old 
man through them all. Whether he spoke 
like a Castilian or a cockney, or an Eastern 
Yankee, amid all the foreign accents and mis- 
pronunciations that he had raked together 
from every country of Europe to poison his 
mother tongue, he remained a quaint, pa- 
thetic person, hungry for honor, anxious to 
be liked, a lonely, homesick old man, who 
offended the Sevillians and bored his com- 
patriots. 

When he was not talking it was easy to 
place the old gentleman. One had seen him 
scores of times sitting in the village grocer}^ 
store, with his boots on the stove, nibbling a 
section of dried apple, and discussing district 
politics. Sometimes, even while talking, he 
forgot for a moment that he was obliged to 
sustain the dignity of a whole nation, and 
relapsed into a simple citizen whose own 



IN SEVILLE. 65 

concerns interested him more than inter- 
national polity. Then, listening to his con- 
versation, we knew that we had met him in 
Glastonbury or Bangor. But he never fairly 
started to speak of himself before he caught 
up the purple, and wrapped it about him in 
a shamefaced fashion. At such times it was 
comical to read in his eyes the distress he 
felt at having shown himself unmasked. 

He was one of the horde of expatriated 
Americans, unable or unwilling to return 
home, who roam over the continent of 
Europe in search of the culture that most 
commonly but succeeds in reducing them to 
the standard of European commonplace. It 
had the contrary effect on our friend, by sub- 
merging him in a friendless situation which 
entirely washed awa}^ the commonplace. He 
was so isolated and felt so sharply the pangs 
of loneliness that he became poetical. To me 
he will ever stand for the image of Exile. 

Of his history we learned only what a few 
bitter words pieced out with conjecture could 
tell, to the effect that in America — at home !— 
he had children who consented to eke out his 
little income so long as he remained abroad. 
This is not enough, or it is too much to hang 
a romance on, according to one's school — 
but his present environment was pathetically 
friendless. He could not speak the language. 



66 IN SEVILLE. 

and the efforts to learn it and so placate the 
Spanish merchants, with whom he had to 
deal in his official capacity, always rubbed 
them the wrong way. His assumption of the 
Spanish gravity — since it was a caricature — 
insulted the natives. In the truest sense, he 
was like a clerk who is without capacity to 
perform his duty and please his master, yet 
is not honest or brave enough to cast out the 
bit of salary and wander careless on the 
common of poverty. The old man's address, 
extremely haughty to tourists, approached 
cringing toward petty Spanish shipping 
clerks, behind whom lay the complaisance 
of his own children. 

His manner had turns of great simplicity ;, 
we saw him constantly while we remained 
at Seville, and learned all shades of it. He 
delighted to map out for us routes of travel,, 
and I am glad to remember we never refused 
the notes of introduction (addressed to peo- 
ple who had time to die or forget him) or 
sundry information he took such a childish 
pleasure to impart. Five years before we 
met him he had made a tour on foot along 
the Italian coast from Castellamare to Genoa, 
and he directed us to a shop in every city 
on the way, where he urged us to make a 
special purchase and mention his name as the 
American gentleman who walked ! 



IN SEVILLE. 67 

A»d how fond he was of dress ! He could 
not accept the fact that he was old and no 
longer quite the glass — if he had ever been — 
fashion would choose wherein to view her- 
self. As soon as he heard that his American 
friends had lately come from Paris he put 
them through a catechism of the modes such 
as a young majo of Seville might have drawn 
up. Texture, color and cut were his topics^ 
and in discoursing of them he felt the cloth, 
held it to the light and snipped it with the 
scissors in a way that denoted understand- 
ing, though at second-hand, for our country's 
representative really dressed himself in by 
gone fashions. It was hard not to laugh 
when he presented his ancient person touched 
up with an extra toilet, but to laugh when he 
was so serious would have been cruel. He 
invariably replied to our compliments : " Oh,, 
these things are "a trifle passe." (We could 
have wagered that an American tailor stitched 
them together twenty years before.) " I think 
of taking a run to Paris to spruce up a bit.' 

Waking up one Sunday morning, my 
emotions were inexpressible to perceive our 
friend in my room preening himself before 
the glass. He had bought a round gray felt 
hat of the easy style beloved by travellers, 
and was now trying its effect in different 
positions on his head. First, he cocked it 



68 IN SEVILLE. 

over the right ear ; second, over the left, and 
then rolled it back off the forehead to ex- 
pose a fringe of sandy-gray hair. When he 
discovered that I was watching him he was 
not a whit abashed, but promptly challenged 
me to admire the ridiculous hat as jaunty and 
becoming. 

This incident implies that he spent as much 
time in our company as he could manage and 
we could not avoid. How many letters has 
he interrupted ! How many delightful morn- 
ing naps has he ruthlessly broken ! But I 
forgive him, and if 1 remembered the 
number would set it down without malice. 
Wherever he may be, whether he is in the 
world or gone to that bourne 

Where books of travel are not bought, 
And only novels sell, 

may he have found congenial spirits who de- 
light in listening to tiresome old stories and 
in trying on fictive new clothes. 

One evening the old gentleman came to 
persuade us to appear in evening dress at a 
reception he was to give to the American 
minister, who had come down to spend Sun- 
day in Seville. We excused ourselves on the 
plea that we were strangers to the minister, 
who had probably come to see Seville, not 
us. Our friend would not take no lor an 
answer, but continued to urge us with such 



IN SEVILLE. 69 

a hurt look that at last we consented, and he 
bustled out with all his cheerful excitement 
high once more. As it turned out, we would 
not have missed forming part of the odd little 
party, a small American colony of five peo- 
ple, whom he led into the minister's sitting 
room at the Fonda de Madrid, and intro- 
duced with a voice full of emotion. There 
was an uncle and his nephew who claimed 
the birthright of Freedom, though they had 
lived at Seville for many years. The uncle 
was a stout, florid man of middle age, who 
did not speak during the evening, biit wore 
an intense look, as if he had just done crying: 
"Hear! Hear!" to a fervid sentence like 
"Millions for defence, but not one cent for 
tribute." I learned afterwards that he lacked 
even enough English for the purpose of ap- 
plause. He had entirely forgotten his mother 
tongue — a fact that surprised us less when 
we heard that he had emigrated from Massa- 
chusetts to Andalusia in his second year. 
The younger man, who had been sent back 
to be educated in a school near Boston, was 
a happier guest, but even he was not quite 
up in the President's English. He spoke it 
in a charming original fashion, which was 
vastly more amusing than any foreigner's 
broken attempt. Having forgotten, one-quar- 
ter of his vocabulary, he coined words with- 



70 IN SEVILLE. 

out hesitation, and gave to his inventions a 
strong Boston accent. But for him the 
audience would have gone off stiffly. The 
lesser diplomat took the event of his career 
in office too seriously, and the honorable min- 
ister no doubt felt the reception of five stran- 
gers without a pretext of business or pleasure 
to be an irksome duty. But the national 
ceremony of shaking hands had hardly been 
gone through with before the young Ameri- 
can-Spaniard threw a few happy remarks into 
the pause which followed. He stated that he 
had once travelled to Madrid, where he had 
the honor to be presented to Senor Castelar, 
'* who is not taller than you are in standing 
up, but I fancy taller in brain." 

The agony of his sponsor at this ill-timed 
tribute to the Spanish orator was painful to 
witness, but it did not endure long. The 
consular agent at once began to talk, and in 
that delicious exercise he forgot his proteges. 
They amused themselves by watching his 
face and predicting, before he opened his 
mouth, whether he would describe Paris 
fashions, or tramp over again that famous 
walking tour in Italy, or deliver a tirade 
against the haughty Spaniards — his three 
inexhaustible topics we had learned to antici- 
pate. This time he disappointed us. As the 
reception was an extraordinary occasion, it 



IN SEVILLE. 7 1 

called for new matter, like the mission school 
he had established in Triana. He spoke of 
that school, related three times over the his- 
tory of its inauguration, and invited the 
minister to attend on the following day. 

We went away in single file, as we had ar- 
rived, and in the same order, except that the 
old gentleman brought up the rear. Before 
the procession reached the hotel court, he 
overtook the foremost man, and insisted on 
shaking hands all around. To each of us, as 
he said good-night, he repeated emphatically, 
** It went off very well. Thank you, thank 
you ! It went off remarkably well." 

No one could resist the contagion of his 
enthusiasm, and as we left him still smiling 
and bowing, every man was convinced that 
the reception — owing, of course, to his own 
attendance — had gone off very well, indeed. 



VL 



IT was still early, so when the young Ameri- 
can-Spaniard invited us to accompany him 
to the house of some friends who were giving 
a musicale, we eagerly fell in with the proposal. 
He took the lead, and-we walked through the 
black streets, here and there aglow with light 



72 IN SEVILLE, 

streaming through an illuminated patio. Be- 
fore one of these bright spots he stopped and 
rang the bell. The g"ate swung back, and the 
master of the house came in person, and met 
us midway in the patio. He was a typical 
Spaniard of the middle class, but offered us 
hospitality like a grand seigneur. The house 
was unlike the majority of Seville houses in 
that the patio vvas not bounded by porticos, 
but narrowed from the walls directly into a 
small passagewa}' that led to the parlors situ- 
ated on the ground floor. These were two 
large rooms thrown into one, scantily fur- 
nished except as to rocking chairs. In the 
rear room a table was spread with cakes and 
sweetmeats, and in the front parlor overlook- 
ing the street, stood a piano. The seiior pre- 
sented us to his wife — a delicate, sweet-faced 
woman — who was sitting in the connecting 
doorway in the midst of her friends, and then 
he carried us into the other room, where most 
of the men sat about, the elders at small card 
tables, and the younger men tilted against 
the wall and staring across a broad river of 
tobacco smoke— the Hellespont that sepa- 
rated them from their Heros. We were not 
early, but it seemed that these Leanders had 
not yet dared to swim. 

At the piano the daughter of the house and 
the leader of the San Fernande orchestra 



IN SEVILLE. 73 

Avere playing duets. She rose when her 
father called her — a young- and very pretty 
girl — so pretty, in fact, that in her behalf I 
would like to translate the delicious Spanish 
freedom of compliment. Like most Sevil- 
lanas, she was rather under the middle size, 
but her Paris gown may have given that 
effect,for it was short, and displayed a lovely 
little foot, of which she could not be too 
proud. 

This young girl's chief charm was her com- 
plexion ; instead of the pallor that the Seville 
ladies of the Delicias Gardens cultivate, her 
cheeks were of a ripe, warm hue, a creamy 
brown, through which a ruddy flood contin- 
ually pulsed. Her features were dignified, 
yet a bit coy ; but wh}^ enumerate the items 
when the likeness escapes? Here are the 
others, though : white teeth, well arched eye- 
brows, eyes, full, black and glowing, such as 
poets have taught us are only to be met with 
in the mellow regions of Andalusia. She 
crossed the room to her father with short, 
quick, yet graceful steps, gazing upon the 
strangers with calm and reserved eyes, but 
kindling into smiles when she recognized her 
acquaintance, the American-Spaniard. Lucky 
fellow ! how we envied him that glance ! 

Whenever she was not playing — for the 
young orchestra leader evidently considered 



74 IN SEVILLE. 

her a fine musician, and was ever hanging- 
over her chair, beseeching her to begin again 
to " repent," as the Boston emigre called im- 
provisation—she used the time to start con- 
versation going between us and her com- 
rades, who showed more modesty than we 
thought becoming, and kept retreating be- 
hind the line of veterans — the married ladies 
in the doorway. Nor were the strangers of 
the best material out of which a hostess 
would like to form her guests. No man feels 
perfectly easy when he suspects he is being 
laughed at, even though the laugh is a good 
natured one, and we were quite sure the 
ladies laughed and wondered at us as half 
barbarians, in whom the leaven of Seville 
was but beginning to work. At last our mu- 
tual coyness melted in the warmth of the 
young hostess's wish to put her guests at 
ease. We were soon chattering as merrily 
as an imperfect knowledge of Spanish per- 
mitted, and our example ought to have 
shamed the Seville youth, who kept their 
places about the walls, and glowered from 
behind a rampart of smoke. 

A little later our slow use of the language 
kept us from joining in the games that were 
played before we went away, involving as 
they did catches and plays on words ; but it 
took no polyglot to enter into their spirit. 



IN SEVILLE. 75 

With the Sevillanas we were delighted in 
a degree worthy of those superlative crea- 
tures who magnify everything, and deserve 
to be viewed through a magnifying glass. 
We were charmed with their expressive eyes, 
pensive and ardent by turns, with their se- 
ducing Andalusian accent, and with their 
exaggerated speech. It was easy to believe 
that they have but two routes of conversa- 
tion : from the tiny to the tremendous, and 
-vice versa; and we went tradition one better 
by concluding that the maidens of Seville are 
by nature strangers to commonplace. 

Toward the close of the evening it was 
proposed that three of the fair guests should 
stand up and dance for us, and all the men 
with one voice shouted in the slang of the 
bull-ring for a boletin de soinbra. The musician 
several times played over the opening bars 
of the dance, but it did not come off. But 
we had the fun of preparation. '' Thou shaft 
dance as my majo, Martita." "Nay, the 
senoritomust be thou who art taller." ''Chi- 
qui-ti-ti-ti-ta, come and take my place, I have 
forgotten the step." 

So it was laughter and silver}^ screams, 
little pushes, pathetic implorings, peremp- 
tory commands — all the accompaniment of 
preparation and fiasco, that called to mind 
similar beginnings we had seen at home. 



76 IN SEVILLE. 



VII. 

THE shameless Cafe Chmitaiit pretends to 
mantle a blush for the Cafe Flanienca of 
Seville, while the latter looks the other way 
when her Parisian sister passes by. Into de- 
grees of license I have no intention to enter 
here, and I seek, by this comparison, only to 
arrive at the reputation of the Cafe Flainenca. 
It is very bad. It is even said to be danger- 
ous. Your old Spanish traveler will ask you 
if you went to a Flamenca, and when you 
answer yes — as you love the truth — he will 
be amazed that you got back without a 
wound. 

It hurts my pride to admit that the Sevil- 
lian chulo considered me beneath his navaja. 
He never once flashed it before my eyes, and 
I am compelled to write a description of the 
Flamenca without putting in the high lights 
of love and jealousy. There is nought more 
charming in a Sevillian tale than to read how 
a beautilul girl, smoking a cigarette on the 
parapet of the bridge, accosted you with 
mocking words, but in a rich contralto voice; 
how she permitted you to buy her sweet- 
meats and promegranates, and to accompany 
her in a long ramble through dark streets to 
her poor home ; how finally she exchanged her 



IN SEVILLE. 77 

nonchalance and disdain for smiles and tender 
words. In due course the adventure should 
terminate by the unexpected arrival of the 
chiilo — a brigand to whom you once granted 
sanctuary — and his sudden recognition of you 
in the midst of a struggle is the only thing 
that saves your life — unless, indeed, he fails 
to recognize you, and a more tragical climax 
is attained. 

This well preserved narrative of Spanish 
adventure, slightly varied in details, always 
passes current, and every traveler expects 
something of the kind to happen to him when 
he visits a Cafe Flamenca. It does not, 
however, and he returns to his hotel without 
other disability than a headache, the result of 
the bad wine he has drunk. 

The women frequenters of the Flamenca 
are outwardly decorous enough. They will 
not taunt you with mocking words, nor 
tempt you with loving speeches ; in fact, they 
will not say anything whatever to you unless 
you speak first. They make up in good be- 
havior what they lack in beauty. 

The hall where these revels are held is, in 
general, a bare, low-ceiled room with rafters 
and walls whitewashed. It is usually to be 
found in a street with an intensely religious 
name. In Cordova we saw the flamenca 
danced in a sequestrated parish church. The 



jS IN SEVILLE. 

room is furnished with tables for the accom- 
modation of drinkers, and a round platform 
for the dancers stands at one end. The per- 
formance, following the Spanish custom, be- 
gins early, about 6:30 o'clock, and while the 
hall is filling up, or before the tobacco sfnoke 
grows dense, is the best time to examine the 
sirens of the flamenca, both on and off the 
stage. 

The former are usually the ugliest and 
coarsest of the lot. They sit in a half-circle 
about a man who plays the guitar; the wo- 
man next him on either side has castanets in 
her hands, while the two or three women 
beyond each of them are the dancers. All 
these women w^ear long, full-skirted gowns ; 
shawls of china crepe over their shoulders, 
and bracelets of black velvet or gaudy rib- 
bon on their arms. Their eyes are red be- 
neath the heavy curls pasted down on their 
foreheads, and they address curt remarks to 
each other in raucous voices. 

The women about the little tables are more 
agreeable to look upon, but their speech also 
is hoarse, and half of what they say remains 
in their throats. Most of them are here with 
men — short, broad chested fellows, with long 
upper lips and crisp, bushy locks, black 
almost to blueness. A few details relieve the 
shadowy hall — the gleam of a round white 



IN SEVILLE. 79 

arm fit to serve as an artist's model, the flash 
of dark eyes that shine with phosphorescent 
light. One woman is strangely fascinating. 
She sits by herself at a table in the darkest 
corner, where her shadow merges impercep- 
tibly with the purplish gray wall. She sits 
motionless, seeing nothing, not even the 
strangers, specimens of a rare species. She 
is not pretty, but her figure, even in repose, 
shows admirable flexibility, and her face is 
one that will attract a second look when she 
is happy. Now it displays the tension of 
anxiety. It seems that to-night is to decide 
something for her. Oh, Chitla^ where is thy 
CJiulo ? I am certain she has quarreled with 
her lover, and expects to make it up with 
him here. Will he come? 

There is only one other woman unattended 
in this hall. She is tall and youthful also, 
bareheaded, with oily locks of abundant 
black hair. Across her shoulders she has 
folded a red and yellow scarf. • It makes her 
look like a handsome mulatto. Her eyes are 
almond shaped and deep set, only half opened, 
and yet disclosing a hard look. This woman 
has no pity for weakness. She glances scorn- 
fully at the other solitary one. She quarrels 
and forgets — just as she loves and forgets. 
What is there to remember? Presently she 
looks at us with the same disdainful air, as 



So IN SEVILLE. 

much as to say : *' What are you doing here ? 
Why do you come and neither drink nor 
play?" 

There is a lull in the conversation as the 
guitar player (he has a head like a cynoce- 
phalus) draws his fingers across the strings 
and begins, in a deep croaking voice, to utter 
exclamations like the prelude to a chant. 
The women sit straighter in their chairs and 
accompany him with murmurs ; the castanets 
faintly clink. He continues to strike the 
guitar and to shout louder and more con- 
nected words, while the women carry the 
treble notes continuously, and the music be- 
comes a tune made up of two discordant 
elements, a strain of very high pitch, accom- 
panied by a growling bass. The middle reg- 
ister is absolutely neglected, and this neglect 
is painful to the ear. 

Upon the women performers this music 
works a curious change. Their cheeks red- 
den a little, the eyes begin to sparkle, cruel 
smiles play around their drawn lips, and with 
the heels of their slippers they beat time upon 
the floor as if involuntarily. 

The guitar player continues his incantation. 
He strikes over and over again the same 
notes of his guitar. But now he shouts less 
frequently ; it is not necessary, for he is by 
this time, reinforced by all the men in the 



IN SEVILLE. 8 1 

cafe, who clap their hands softly and yell 
hoarse cries like this : 

'' Ole ! Ole I Viva tu mare /' ' 

These cries are intermittent, but the guitar 
goes on always, entreating, seducing, and 
gradually intoxicating the dancers with its 
barbaric monotony. The musician leans 
back on his stool, elevates his chin until his 
face is invisible, and gives vent now and then 
to a sort of enraged howl. The cries of the 
spectators grow fiercer and louder — ''Ole! 
Ole ! "—and they clap their hands and stamp 
their feet with a measured noise like a stam- 
pede of buffaloes. Meanwhile the eyes of the 
dancers dilate and shine like furnaces — they 
stamp their feet in unison, they breathe in 
gasps, and they seem to grow young and 
lovely as you continue to contemplate them. 

Then one woman rises to her feet, extends 
both arms horizontally, and with eyes half 
closed, a strange smile on her lips, she ad- 
vances slowly and gradually, all the time 
swinging and balancing herself like a ham- 
mock, into the centre of the circle. Her 
gilded shoes mark time with the castanets; 
her long skirt rises and falls ; her ankles, clad 
in yellow silk, gleam in a rotatory motion 
like the gold apples of Atalanta. She bends 
forward and back, her limbs move languor- 
ously, her heels only mark the time. From 



82 IN SEVILLE. 

the slow movement she passes into the vitOy 
and the lower part of her body undulates 
with quick circles like the head of a serpent, 
while from the waist up she seems column- 
like, except for her swaying arms and her 
head, which she shakes back and forth as if 
to dislocate it. Throughout this rapid dance 
she fixes on the spectators an unchanging 
glance, half-invitation, half-menace. 

" Ole ! Ole ! " Stamps and hand-clappings 
increase. Men and women breathe quickly 
and deeply. The guitar player sprawls on 
his stool, with his head thrown back in 
ecstacy, while the guitar gives forth the same 
sounds, only louder. Another dancer joins 
the first, then a third, until all the women, 
including those with the castanets, have fol- 
lowed, seized by the same intoxication. 

Now they dance the Zapateado; they 
dance the same steps in concert, but each girl 
crosses and recrosses the stage as the whim 
seizes her, but never colliding with any 
other. They raise their arms, touch them to 
the floor, over their heads, behind their 
backs, but there is no appearance of mere 
acrobatic agility in these movements. At 
last these women lose the aspect of human 
beings, and become veritable creatures of 
the barbaric music, personified notes of its 
gamut, and their faces, under the magical 



IN SEVILLE. 8$ 

excitement of the dance, take an aspect of 
beauty. ^ It is not sublimated beauty. It is 
bcaute dn diablc. Their lovers will tremble 
beneath the rage of their love, the fever of 
their caresses. 

In their turn these women — vulgar before 
— exert a terrible influence on the spectators. 
By the enchantment of their glowing eyes, 
their tight-shut lips, their heaving breasts, 
the dancers transport the excitable Spaniards 
into another realm. It is not a realm of jo}'- 
and peace. It is a realm of fire and sword — 
streaked red and yellow like the Spanish 
flag. 

Would all this be common-place at home? 
Perhaps ; but here we are carried out of our- 
selves; we are affected like the Spaniards. 
We balance our heads from shoulder to 
shoulder; we abandon ourselves to the mo- 
notonous and implacable music. We are in 
the arena watching the toreador as he enters, 
tightly cased in a jacket stiff w^ith gold, a 
bright scarlet silk waistcoat, a jaunty hat on 
his head and in his hand the long sword that 
weds the sunlight. We hear him sing to his 
well-beloved this couplet of the Petenera: 

Kisses one and the other 

I can never forget are two, 
The h\st I gave my mother, 

The first I gave to you. 



34 IN SEVILLE. 

Or we are on the enormous diligence, be- 
hind the four pairs and their leader. We see 
the Zagal as he goes among them inspecting 
their gaudy trappings, while the Mayoral 
stands bantering with the buxom maid of the 
inn. 

" Coachman, do you know the town ? 
It is easy to lose yourself there." 

" You ask me if I know the town! 
My father was born in its kennel, — 
My mother before the Cathedral." 

Then, as the Zagal announces that all is 
ready, the gallant driver presses the maid's 
waist in farewell, while she continues : 

" If you seek me with a good motive. 
Let us go quickly to the parish — 
Let us be married in Latin." 

At which the driver laughs loudly, swings 
himself to his lofty perch, cracks his whip, 
the Zagal shouts "^rre," the bystanders ap- 
plaud, the mules jingle their bells and leap 
into a cloud of dust. 

" 0/e ! Ok ! Viva tu marc ! " 

But one girl is dancing now. Her com- 
panions are sitting down, overpowered by 
the excess of their excitement and the vio- 
lence of their exercise. The guitar murmurs 
in a lower tone and with frequent pauses. 
Slower and slower she glides, her billowy 
skirt subsides, and gradually, almost imper- 



IN SEVILLE. 85 

ceptibly, as a wave with the dying swell, she 
sinks into her seat. 



VIII. 

ERRANTRY frequentlyled our feet to the 
iron bridge that spans the Guadalquivir. 
The situation is not to be despised ; in addi- 
tion to the wide spreading view it commands, 
it has a certain charm for the lover of his 
kind. In the middle of the graceful span he 
may take his position, and without a great 
stretch of the imagination (none whatever if 
he is a native), consider himself to stand in 
the centre of the world's commerce. On 
both sides rise forests of masts - of small 
ships, it is true, sailing vessels, minor steam- 
ers, tugs, and lighters — the undergrowth of 
commerce, but imposing by their multitude. 
These vessels seemed to be fixtures ; we never 
saw them arriving or setting out. Their dis- 
mantled masts resembled freshly set-out trees, 
that would, in time, put on leaves. They 
led by a natural transition to the thickly 
clothed oaks and poplars of the Delicias 
gardens on Seville's side, and on Triana's 
they served to hedge out the sight of filthy 



S6 IN SEVILLE. 

inns, sailors' lodging-houses, hovels of laborers 
and gypsies that make up the ill-smelling sub 
urb. A series of clean, broad docks adjoin 
the river promenade of the city, of which 
they are not a bad continuation, for work 
goes on there with the same languor as play 
proceeds in the aristocratic paseo. We 
watched a vessel one morning loading with 
hogsheads of sherry, and by breakfast time 
scarce a dozen of the hooped sunlight had 
been trundled into the hold. The navvies 
looked half asleep, and the tars wholly so, as 
if the sovereignty of the Guadalquivir was 
not to be disputed, even at this busy port, 
and by these rough seamen. 

Suddenly, the yellow silence was broken. 
A loud splash indicated that the river-god 
was claiming a human sacrifice. The truck- 
ers left their work and ran down to the edge. 
The vessels that lay moored or anchored in 
the stream leaped wide awake. Men ran up 
the rigging ; heads popped out of port holes 
and over sides ; the banks were thronged, 
and the bridge parapet beaded with eyes, all 
staring at a spot in the flood, where they saw 
what seemed to be an arm battling with the 
current. For a few minutes the spectators 
preserved a ghastly silence, but at the sight 
of a swaying head, topped with brown curls, 
that emerged from the wave, they set up a 



IN SEVILLE. 87 

shout of encouragement, following it with 
a confusion of orders, directions and prayers 
for the safety of the buffeter. Owing to the 
blinding reflection of the sun by the sand 
colored river, no one could determine the 
sex or age of the swimmer. One group held 
that he was a boy ; another, a man ; while a 
third group challenged these, pointed to the 
long, curly hair now distinctl}^ visible, and 
pronounced that the person in peril was a 
woman. The swimmer's awkward move- 
ment seemed to support this opinion, which 
spread among the crowd, and powerfully 
increased their anxiety. At length, the ob- 
ject of so many shrieks, commands and 
prayers gained the sloping wharf, and, climb- 
ing up wearily, revealed itself to be a dog, a 
long, g3.unt per 7'o, which hastened to intrench 
behind a fort of hogsheads and lick itself 
dry. The spectators looked at each other 
sheepishly — then laughed spontaneously, as 
a Spanish crowd rarely laughs ; but this was 
too much for their surly dignity, and they 
all knocked off work for the day. 

The lover of wide spreading views may be 
repaid by an hour on this bridge. It affords 
a good picture of Seville, w^ith a panoramic 
glimpse of the slightly undulating country 
that stretches north for miles. But the sun 
burns down upon it hot and cruel. Even 



IN SEVILLE. 



the Guadalquivir, which is more like the 
sun's creature than the moon's, at this point 
seems to long to beat off his fierce kisses,, 
and escape to the cool shadowy turns of its 
channel, where the river winds through the 
Delicias. Most strangers will hasten with 
like speed to follow the same covirse, leaving 
the gas works, the bridge, the vessels of com- 
merce — whatever lends justice to the claim 
Seville sets up to be a modern city — to broad 
daylight, while they seek antiquity under 
the shade trees of the qua}^ They have not 
far to go before coming to a tower, where 
surely they may drop the burden of the 
present, if the names of Caesar and Sertorius 
open a well of time deep enough to drown it. 
From this venerable Torre del Oro, that 
throws a broken vermilion image on the 
water, we used, like Parizade, to fill a vase 
with the golden water of antiquity, and bear 
it carefully through the labyrinthian streets. 
Like the devoted sister in that Arabian tale, 
we used, with 'pious hand, to sprinkle the 
broken flag-stones and cracked portals until 
they teemed again with the life of the thir- 
teenth century. So we discovered the lofty 
ancient house of the UUoa's, and by means 
of the magic drops re-opened the transverse 
passage, where the offended governor lost 
his life b}^ Juan Tenorio's sword. We could 



IN SEVILLE. 89 

never transport a sufficient quantity of the 
precious fluid to release the stones of a quar-' 
ter, or a street ; either the vase was too small 
or we sprinkled unw^isely, or an accident 
dashed it from our hands. From one cause 
or another we were continually dropping- 
back into our own century. Yet I think w^e 
enjoyed this confusion of epochs more than 
a complete success. Ours would have been 
the contusion, if the threads of yesterday and 
to-day had really been untangled. The 
time worn and weather stained houses — lofty 
and low, in picturesque propinquitv — the 
dark and mysterious wynds ; their names as 
Guzman el Bueno : the infrequent passen- 
gers hugging the shady side — what imper- 
fectly formed and almost effaced images of 
more than half forgotten names and deeds 
kept crowding back from childhood's library 
of tale and history, seduced out of the void 
by these circumstances ! How many persons 
we had dimly read of, how many events we 
had never understood, now stirred in their 
graves like friends we had lost, and advent- 
ures we had <y;one throuo-h ! 

This, I take to be the essence of an old 
city's charm. 

Progressing thus in the character of Pay- 
nim, or Christian — it did not matter which, 
so long as we remained a few thousand years 



90 IN SEVILLE. 

old — we hunted for and found, in the streets 
of the Old Inquisition, the garden door 
through which beautiful Estrella was to have 
been abducted ; we loitered in the dusky 
streets behind the Archbishop's palace, all 
solemn as cathedral aisles ; we lingered long 
in that quarter, which was distinguished by 
its aristocratic and churchly discretion, and 
besought iron gates and latticed windows to 
3^ield their jealously guarded secrets. One 
of the streets of this quarter grew half com- 
municative and friendh^ It never told us its 
name, nor its precise situation, nor could we 
find out these things for ourselves, when, 
subsequently, we began to traverse it every 
day. The most we could learn about it was 
that it was neighbor to a street called the 
Bottle of Water, lined with wine shops and 
a thoroughfare for drunkards. At the ter- 
minus of this street, that retained for months 
its incognito, we stood one afternoon, and ran 
our eyes carelessly over the abutting build- 
ing. It resembled, in some degree, an Italian 
palace, and seemed to wear an aspect of 
injured dignity at being thus indifferently 
surveyed. Inquiring the name of the house 
from a passer, he told us it was the Casa 
Car as a. 

We had looked so many times in vain for 
the Casa Carasa, that now the house had 



IN SEVILLE. 91 

come to us, as it were, we rang the bell at 
once, and did not stop to think of the diffi- 
culty of making ourselves known to stran- 
gers, or to weigh the scruples of shyness, 
which keep tourists out of interesting houses. 
A stout, middle-aged priest unlocked the 
iron reja, and admitted us with a gracious 
air, before we had time to explain why we 
had called. 

Following him we Avent up a few steps 
into a passage screened off by a second 
ornamental door, and passing through, we 
looked into the noble patio of the dwelling, 
with its famous pillars and medallions. This 
patio is very lofty, and without an awning, 
and owing to the light and elegant pillars 
which support three tiers of loggias, it seems 
larger than it is. The first floor columns 
have capitals of very delicate medallions 
copied closely from Italian work ; the second 
floor shafts are said to resemble in detail and 
general design the style of the Romanesque 
architecture, while the upper gallery is more 
closely wrought in engaged shafts carved to 
the eaves. 

The architect — his name is lost in the 
limbo of mediaeval artists — has carried his 
art beyond the court-yard to the loggias, and 
made of the latter a continuation of out-of- 
doors. Bv the combination of two stvles. 



92 IN SEVILLE. 

which might seem irreconcilable, the simple 
Gothic and the airy Mudejar, he has charmed 
away any thought of a roof. In these loggias 
the visitor receives the impression that he is 
in a garden — a subdued priestly garden. The 
rooms around the portico, of which he 
catches glimpses through open doors, seem 
to be deeper recesses, arbors of denser shade. 
They were rooms, however, and we were 
guided through them by the priest who ad- 
mitted us, and who manifested great patience 
while we examined everything curious. He 
confessed, at the start, that he had no accu- 
rate information concerning the house to im- 
part ; but many rooms remained untouched 
by the restorer, and they spoke for them- 
selves and commanded our admiration. A 
small room in particular, one of a suite which 
had formed the first owner's oratory, library 
and bed-chamber, was as beautiful as any 
spot to be seen now in the Alhambra. It 
was tiled half way up to the ceiling with 
azulejo as dazzling as on the day it was laid. 
The roof was of artesonado, in a fine and 
delicate pattern, without pendentives, and 
the floor was a charming specimen of Moorish 
tile work. The priest told us this had the 
name of being the last pure Morisco work in 
Spain, having been finished just before the 
exodus of those clever craftsmen. 



IN SEVILLE. 93 

The other rooms of this suite were larger 
and obstructed with furniture, some of which 
boasted fine carving of Scriptural scenes that 
would suit a churchly taste. We inspected 
them, and were then invited to return down 
the portico and visit a corresponding suite 
on the opposite side of the entrance way. 
It suited us better, however, to sit outside 
and study the court-yard and loggia from 
this new point of view. In fact, the mere 
act of looking at a beautiful building, of 
which we had read little or nothing, was 
ver}^ refreshing. 

One member of our party sighed and 
remarked, that if he had his way, he would 
choose this house for his residence in Seville, 
with the portico for a lounging place, and 
the rich, dusky room we had visited for a 
sleeping chamber. The priest immediately 
responded that he might do so if he were 
serious, for the Carasa was a casa de huespedes, 
and he was himself a boarder. To prove his 
assertion, he carried us off to the comedor, 
where a motherly Senora was superintend- 
ing the laying of the cloth for dinner, and 
she explained politely, but with characteristic 
Spanish indifference, her willingness to enter- 
tain us. Returning with speed to the calle 
O'Donnell, we held our second interview 
with Mariana, who came down dressed in 



94 l>^ SEVILLE. 

the same pink calico gown she had worn 
when w^e saw her before. Emilio packed up 
our belongings. Margarita was not visibly 
affected by our departure, but responded 
" Co7i Dios ? " as calmly as if we were merely 
crossing the street. Then, like belated birds, 
we flew from the wintry pickings of Mariana's 
pncJiao to the bountiful spring of the Casa 
Carasa. 

That is equivalent to saying we had plenty 
to eat there, and gross as the acknowledg- 
ment may read, it is true that we remember 
the Carasa more kindly for the excellent 
table it provided than for its poetic archi- 
tecture. Man cannot live on stones, even 
though they enclose shadowy porticoes and 
Moorish chambers. But we continued to 
delight in them, because the panccillo and 
liigada never lost their excellence. Oh, the 
gladness of the Spanish breakfast ! We never 
realized it until we came to the Casa Carasa. 
The thick, warm chocolate and delicious 
small rolls that the fat cook. Dona Julita, 
brought up with her own hand. She was 
fifty years old, but she had the youngest 
vocabulary. She called us her sons, and she 
woke us up b}^ patting the pillow with one 
hand, while with the other she held out the 
rich cup, coaxing us with soothing words to 
drink. Dona Julita came and went with the 



IN SEVILLE. 95 

rosy flush of dawn, so far as we were con- 
cerned, but the plenty of the dinner-table 
proved that her labors did not end there. 
When the hour approached for the principal 
meal Ave did not strain to be down early, as 
we had done at Mariana's. The boarders of 
the Carasa were not cadets and medical 
students, and dinner went forward there in 
a stately archiepiscopal fashion. There was 
another reason besides Julita for these pleasant 
conditions. We were breathing a churchly 
atmosphere ; for, as befitted the memory of 
Canon Pinero, priests were in the majority 
at what had once been his board. The cura, 
a licentiate who had read Corderius, a choir 
chaplain, and two theological students — 
brothers — represented the Church in this 
little huespedes. The laity had but three 
examples — a banker, who had his counting- 
room in the neighborhood, and the two 
Americans. The curate sat at the chief 
place of the table, and directed the con- 
versation. He had read much, both in old 
and modern books, and his pure Castilian 
accent gave to his talk a style that we found 
a little lofty at times, but generally pleasant. 
Of the other ecclesiastics, the chaplain was a 
handsome man of thirty, who dispensed in 
dress, as far as he dared, with the badges of 
his office, and in speech showed an equal 



96 IN SEVILLE. 

desire to talk like a man of the world. The 
licentiate, on the contrary, in gravity of con- 
versation and deportment, was a model 
churchman. He w^as good and dry, and 
should have lived in the days when religion 
was religion. He was a foil for the other 
two, who seemed to have made a close study 
of the arts of rendering themselves agree- 
able. They spoke with those Andaluzas 
voices, which are the richest and most poet- 
ical voices in the world, and are the only tones 
that sound more musical in masculine than 
in feminine throats. Had other things been 
unequal, I think we would have remained 
at the Carasa, in order to enjoy as long as 
possible the melodious tones of the priests. 
Sharing this cloistral pension wuth these 
skirted companions, we scarce expected to 
listen to tales of love. The cadet and his 
comrades remained outside, and the little 
god surely had enough to do to attend to 
their flirtations, without troubling the hearts 
Avhich beat under the habit of religion. But 
we had not been domiciled long at the Carasa 
befoi*e the younger of the two theological 
students, who had quickly put himself e7i 
rapport with the traveled Americans, con- 
vinced us by his tale that Cupid does, in 
truth, wing a closer iiight to Seville than to 
other cities of the world. He was in love, 



IN SEVII.LE. 97 

and begged us to advise him how to throw 
off soutane and bands before he had fairly 
put them on. 

But let me begin at the beginning. The 
brothers were the only children of a w^ealthy 
candle manufacturer of Madrid, whose heart 
had been lighted to religion- perhaps by his 
own tapers. At any rate, he was devout, 
and wished to give both sons to the Church. 
Therefore, he placed them in a monastic 
seminary near Seville, in order to remove 
them from chance encounters with worldly 
Madrid friends. In the monastery the 
younger brother had proved the more ex- 
emplary ; he was quite happy for the space 
of a year, reciting, or reading in turns with 
his comrades, the Offices and the Breviary. 
In the beginning of their second year the 
elder brother was convicted in one of the 
petty sins that the seminary scholars were 
fond of committing, which was reported to 
his father. He came and carried his sons to 
the curate, a personal friend, and left them in 
his charge at the Casa Carasa, to remain until 
the priest thought it wise to restore them to 
the seminary. 

The change proved beneficial to the elder 
brother. Whether he really began to love 
the Church for its own sake, or in the pomp- 
ous societv of the lords of the Church saw 



98 IN SEVILLE. 

afar off a mitre and a crozier, the result was 
the same, and h€ devoted himself assiduously 
to Thomas a Kempis. 

The effect on Cesario, the younger son, 
hitherto so good and pious, was vastly differ- 
ent. On a certain High Mass, which all 
Sevillians attend in the national costume, 
while he sat in the coro, occasionally lending 
his voice to the service, a girl came in and 
knelt down quite near him. He might have 
put his hand through the wide interstices of 
the carvings and touched her on the shoulder. 

At first he only noticed how well the black 
silk basquina and the mantilla of black lace 
became her. Then he perceived that her 
hair was of beautiful reddish-brown color, 
and that her eyes, which sometimes she 
raised, feeling his upon her, were brown, 
and large, and speaking. He had not turned 
many times from contemplating those brown 
eyes back to the missal before the letters were 
blurred, and the book trembled in his grasp. 
Realizing that he had lost the worshipping 
spirit, he laid aside the book and boldly con- 
tinued to gaze. 

When the young priest saw her again she 
did not wear the dress of the country, but 
was attired in the last fashion from Paris. 
Nevertheless, he recognized her, and because 
the bitter tears he had shed in the interval 



IN SEVILLE. 99 

had not washed out a line of her image from 
his heart, he manfully determined to weep no 
more, but to love her in secret until he could 
love her openly and without reproach. That 
would be when he was no longer pretending 
to study for the priesthood ; but he told us 
that before making up his mind to disappoint 
his father he had suffered greatly, not that 
he feared his father's anger, but he dreaded 
the anger of God. 

We assured him — somewhat irreligiously 
I am afraid — that he need not suffer on that 
score, and we counseled him to make a clean 
breast of it to the curate. He promised to 
act on this advice. For two days he avoided 
us, and appeared to be in mental torture ; 
but, on the third, he rose from his bed 
in the middle of the night to knock at the 
curate's door. He confessed everything to 
him with sobs, but with a determination to 
stand by his purpose that no argument could 
shake. He related the points of the conver- 
sation to us next morning. Soon afterwards 
his father arrived and took him home to 
Madrid. I do not know if the sequel was 
that happy ending most people like to their 
romances ; but even if he found the girl with 
the red-brown hair engaged, or unable to love 
him, I am sure Casario found another. He 
was of the stuff to find another. To the last 



lOO IN SEVILLE. 

I repeated my inquiries to the curate, who 
always suavely replied that his young friend 
was assisting in the father's business — candle- 
making — and reported to be happy in the 
choice he had made. 



IX. 



BOTH curate and chaplain, who led the 
talk at our dinner table, were not so 
liberal in deed as in word. When the day of 
Saint Anthony fell, they refused to keep the 
festival with us, and they spoke with con- 
siderable disdain of the preparations made 
by the common people of Seville for cele- 
brating it, telling us that we should see on 
this occasion nothing but " tonterias Espafio- 
las " — Spanish follies. In fact, in becoming 
the darling " San Anton " of the people. 
Saint Anthony lost much of his dignity. 
Reading his life by Athanasius, and listening 
to the legends told of him by a Spanish 
peasant, it is dif^cult to understand that 
both refer to the same person. The church 
biographer represents him as the oracle of the 
Nile, whose relics worked many miraculous 
cures in victims suffering with '* a pestilen- 
tial erysipelatous distemper called the sacred 



IN SEVILLE. lOI 



fire," and as a holy man, who, in his lifetime, 
wore only a coarse shift of hair and never 
washed his body. Athanasius tells a great 
deal more, but the common imagination has 
seized upon the last point, and rejected the 
rest. He never washed his body, conse- 
quently Anthony is a saint after their own 
hearts. 

The Sevillians do not doubt that Anthony 
is now in heaven, but because he possessed 
no gold or silver on earth they suppose that 
he remains poor above, and wears there a 
second rate, a tarnished halo. On that ac- 
count the people love him familiarly, and no 
one is too poor and common to creep under 
the mantle of this humble patron. It is even 
spread wide enough to include the brute 
creation, and, for upwards of a century, the 
festival of "San Anton" has been devoted 
to blessing the animals : horses, cows, mules 
and asses, and to the sale of charms for their 
preservation from disease. 

We were told if we did not choose to walk 
to the convent church in the suburb, where 
the function referred to is performed for 
convenience of farmers and muleteers, we 
could still see many curious sights by going 
to the church of Santa Catalma, in the north- 
ern part of the city. Our way there was 
made difficult by the throng pushing in the 



I02 IN SEVILLE. 

same direction, or battling to chaffer with 
itinerant venders who had deserted their 
customary stands and taken to the streets 
by which the crowd must pass. Every variety 
of cripple was propelling himself, as rapidly 
as his abbreviations would permit, to the 
church door, in order to be in time for the 
procession of animals. Their rags, and the 
motley costumes of the crowd made a true 
picture ; as loud to the eyes as to the ear 
were the barking of dogs, the clatter of 
tongues, the squalling of children. 

Reaching the plaza Ponce de Leon, there 
seemed to be not even crowding room for 
the new comers, and adozen soldiers stationed 
to preserve an open space around an oriental 
fountain near the church door, were having 
a hard time of it. We were pushed forward 
by people who came after us, until we were 
drawn into the current of devotees, and 
entered the church through a low, sombre 
portal, obstructed by the bodies and crutches 
of the mendicants who lined the walls. 

The majority of the worshippers in the 
church were Avomen, and while many were 
kneeling before a table at which presided 
a priest muttering an ave, and crossing them 
with a bone of St. Anthony, more were pros- 
trate against the boxes of the confessional, 
placed in the vicinity of chapels and in 



IN SEVILLE. 103 

angles of the wall. Another large group of 
women knelt on the floor before the Capilla 
Major — a Moorish-looking high altar — with 
their arms stretched out as in wild entreaty, 
an attitude they held for a long time together. 

Meanwhile there was a procession of tapers 
all round the church, chanting from chapel 
to chapel, and pausing before each for pray- 
ers. As the priests and acolytes lingered in 
the dark recess of an altar with the tapers, 
reflected like flaming hearts by the metal 
railings, or marched slowly across the church, 
where the tapers twinkled like stars under 
the noble roof of the nave, the effect was 
solemn — solemn enough to overcome the 
repugnance excited by the friar mumbling 
his spells at the door. 

There was no solemnity in the ceremony 
as it went forward out of doors. At the 
mouth of the street that turned into the 
plaza, as many as fifty cabs were drawn up, 
and the drivers, Avith interjections and ob- 
jurgations, were unharnessing their animals 
and leading them through the people up to 
the fountain. There a number of muleteers 
and asses had stood for two hours in the 
broiling sun waiting for the signal. Some 
lackeys came up at the last moment, leading 
with difficultv the beautiful English horses 
of Sevillian noblemen through the line of 



I04 IN SEVILLE. 

spectators, who swayed forward and back, 
and littered admiring exclamations, to the 
great terror of the animals. The lackeys 
were swearing like pirates ; the cab drivers 
and muleteers shouted out unfavorable com- 
parisons between their own tranquil beasts — 
some lying down, others standing motion- 
less—and the handsome, frisky horses of the 
aristocrats. 

At precisely noon the procession began to 
move forward from the fountain to a window 
in the church, which an old padre, with a 
very red face, had thrown open. As the 
animals passed under him he sprinkled holy 
water upon them. The horses and mules 
started back in astonishment and displeas- 
ure, the nervous beasts of the region giving 
the lackeys great trouble to keep them from 
dashing through the ranks of sightseers. The 
asses only manifested themselves to be good 
Catholics, and received the holy drops with 
brays of refreshment. 

In addition to the blessing of his animal, 
each muleteer brought a sack of grain to be 
consecrated by the father. This he did by 
moistening it with holy water and stirring it 
with a relic of St. Anthony. He then returned 
it, and received for his pains a peseta — twenty 
cents — not dear for a bag of grain warranted 
to cure any disease beast-flesh is heir to. 



IN SEVILLE. 105 

We did not linger long to watch this 
spectacle, which is more amusing than edify- 
ing, but turned to go, and began to battle 
with the human waves which had poured 
into the plaza in an incessant turbid stream 
since an early hour, and were still pouring 
in. The late comers were the near relatives 
of the unwashed and ragged people we had 
seen in the morning, and the whole assem- 
blage, as we passed through it, presented but 
a confusion of grime and tatters. Infecting 
all like a poisonous gas generated by refuse, 
rose the evil odor which one never escapes 
in Spain — the breath of the Iberian peasant, 
a mouldy breath compounded of garlic, vile 
tobacco, and decayed teeth, and here exhaled 
by the multitude with deadly power. Till 
we had fled from this effluvium to the purer 
atmosphere of a balcony overlooking the 
square, we could not distinguish in the 
unclean crowd its characteristic and pictur- 
esque features, so real is the relation, in 
regard to pleasure, which exists between the 
eye and the nose. 

Up there the people recovered pictur- 
esqueness. The dirt returned to simple 
dirt again, and no longer seemed unsavory 
squalor, nameless uncleanness representing 
moral vileness. From that vantage pohit we 
could admire them, and we would not — if 



Io6 IN SEVILLE. 

we had dared to take such a liberty with the 
noble Spaniards below — have washed a single 
grimy check, patched up a solitary colored 
rag, or mended a decomposing zapato. The 
missionary spirit which had dawned in our 
breasts faded out again, and left us simple 
travelers, wishing to keep the people in their 
filth and ignorance for a spectacle. What 
crimes committed against civilization must 
tourists answer for ! 

Now that the crowd had reached its desti- 
nation it was not so noisy as when traversing 
the calle del Sol and other streets leading 
thither. Though inclined to mock while 
a muleteer passed them on the way to the 
priest with his animal, they preserved, for 
the most part, a heavy silence entirely strange 
to a festival. There was no jostling, no con- 
certed shouting ; however closely packed 
among his fellows the individual may have 
been, he preserved his individuality, and 
waited for a moment of silence before utter- 
ing his comment, to ensure its being heard. 
Some n\cn beneath our balcony looked up 
and saluted tf)e " im{)ertinente curiosos," as 
if they had divined the motive which took us 
out of nose-shot. 1 wondered why these 
people had gathered to witness the cere- 
mony, and why they observed the feast, 
which is a voluntary one, when they seemed 



IN SEVILLE. 107 

to be unable to derive pleasure from it. 
There surely is no crowd at once so surly 
and quiet as a Spanish crowd, and I imagine 
their capacity for being- ill-tempered and sub- 
missive at the same time is what has made 
them, despite fierce intermittent revolutions, 
the most docile puppets of despotism history 
shows. 

In the evening we went to the Alameda 
del Hercule, where we were told we should 
see the best of the fun. This Alameda is sit- 
uated in a poor quarter of Seville, composed 
almost wholly of laboring men and mechanics. 
The streets which end in the broken pave 
ment of the plaza have ugly and slatternly 
doorways, and every sixth house is a filthy 
*' public." The great quadrilateral plaza 
appears extremely poverty stricken, and in 
the day-time it shows an appalling degree of 
dirt and squalor, besides being pervaded by 
a horrible smell. In the centre of the Alameda 
is a battered Moorish well-curb, and in lines 
down two sides of the place stand stone 
pedestals and columns, supporting statues 
that could give enigmatical points to the 
Sphynx of the desert, so broken, so chipped, 
so indistinguishable as to sex are they. The 
houses fronting on the Hercule consist of 
but one poor story, but they have flower-pots 
in the balconies and against the walls. 



Io8 IN SEVILLE. 

Previous visits to this gaunt and hippocratic 
Alameda had not possessed us in favor of it 
as a theatre of diversion. Night, however, 
served as a charitable mantle to cover up the 
painful decay of the place, and numerous 
bonfires, built on the ragged pavement, for 
the time exorcised its unfragrant demon. 

These bonfires are the marks of the festi- 
val, though their relation to the popular 
''San Anton" is vague, and the people that 
light them here every year have forgotten, 
if they ever knew it, the origin of the custom, 
it has come down, perhaps, from the Egyp- 
tian St. Anthony's victory over the "sacred 
fire." Formerly every family in the barrio 
had the ambition to light a fire of its own, 
but latterly the custom has died out, so far 
as families are concerned, unless the groups 
of hoydenish girls and surly men who keep 
up the practice are to be considered as fam- 
ihes in embryo. 

It was dark as pitch in the narrow street 
we took to the Alameda, but as we drew near 
we heard a great humming aud buzzing, like 
innumerable bees, and waves of light Irom 
the torches swept down the street at intervals, 
illuminating the portals, and going out sud- 
denly, like a conflagration half under control. 
A heavy asphyxiating atmosphere accompa- 
nied these flashes, burymg the damp freshness 



IN SEVILLE. 109 

of night under odors of smoke, cooked food 
and dying flowers. When we emerged on 
a little eminence, and surveyed the plaza, it 
presented a kaleidoscopic jumble of colors 
and forms, now like a dark mass, again bril- 
liantly lighted; people jostling each other, 
constantly moving, and apparently inextri- 
cably entangled. Crowds of faces upturned 
with broad grins, arms that waved above 
them, a great noise of talking, laughing and 
stamping, formed the first impression of a 
mob it Avould be wisdom to keep out of. But, 
when we mingled with them, we found less 
confusion than we had expected. A certain 
order was maintained, and, instead of being 
locked together motionless, the crowd moved 
in two processions between the lines of bon- 
fires, one going up and the other going down 
the plaza. 

Beside the glowing heaps old women sold 
brands, calling out the price in hoarse, alco- 
holic, disagreeable voices, with a lugubrious 
intonation. These the chulos bought for 
their girls — the chulas — whom they drew 
out of the ranks for a moment to throw a 
brand on the fire for good luck. From group 
to group light words, free gestures, a cross 
tire of badinage, passed between men and 
women. Most of the latter were girls of the 
people, and wore calico dresses, Manilla 



no IN SEVILLE. 

shawls, and flowers in their hair. The men, 
also, conformed to one style of dress, which 
consisted ot tight trousers, short jackets, and 
the soft hats of the mushroom shape, called 
hongo. Not all of these men were of the 
lower classes. Many had soft, delicate hands, 
covered with valuable rings, and our eyes 
testified to the truth of what we had heard, 
that Seville gentlemen liked to amuse them- 
selves at the festival of ''San Anton." 

By the light of the bonfires, and of torches, 
fixed to the ghostly Roman marbles, little 
tables set on stakes, offered refreshments of 
fish and salted meats, smelts fried in oil, 
anchovies, and a mixture of eggs and codfish, 
called Soldados de Pavia. Wine was sold in 
abundance to quench the thirst this kind of 
food excited, and the roisterers drank it 
freely. Early in the night they exhibited 
signs of intoxication. They fired olives at 
each other, seized the women's fans, and 
broke them over their neighbor's head ; while 
extravagant shouts, the crashing of glasses 
and shrieks of coarse laughter indicated that 
the patrons of these tables were principally 
of the " Merry Gentry." 

Leaving their vicinity, and joining the 
moving throng, we found that little booths 
had been erected all around the plaza, some 
of them theatrical, in front of which dingy 



IN SEVILLE. Til 

persons of either sex, men dressed as women 
and women as men, bawled out the title of 
the sainete or tonadilla (farce or musical com- 
edy) which would be played inside, as well 
as the names of the distinguished actors who 
would take part in them. Hucksters at the 
doors of other booths cried out the fabulous 
bargains in tinware, shoes, gloves, and every 
sort of wearing apparel, Avithout exhibiting 
any, offered within. A booth, better patron- 
ized than those supplying ordinar}^ wants, 
was presided over by a villainous looking 
man, surrounded by his court of barateros 
and gamesters. He did nothing to attract 
customers, except to shuf^e from one hand to 
the other an ancient pack of cards. This man's 
face touched the very bottom of the abyss. 
To look at him was to reniember ail the 
deeds of blood one had ever read about. 
It was a dreadful face, set, seamed and almost 
grotesquely wicked. But his eyes prevented 
it from being grotesque. They alone moved 
and gleamed on individual after individual 
in the passing group, with a green light like 
a cat's in the dark. 

Next to him the King of the Gypsies, from 
the suburb of Los Humeros, was not above 
turning a dishonest penny, to the disgust of 
the professional guitaristas, who were present 
in force, by getting up a dance on a piece of 



IT2 IN SEVILLE. 

carpet spread down on the pavement. Much 
as they would have liked to protest, the 
guitar players scarcely grumbled under their 
breath ; they feared the intensity of the 
swarthy king's evil eye. His zingali hung 
on the skirts of every couple, assuring the 
" caballero " that he would be rich, and the 
" senorita " that she would get a kind hus- 
band. Early in the evening, or before the 
dances had fairly begun, these brown fates 
reaped a rich harvest from the credulity of 
maid and man. Not that I think these Dulci- 
neas consider kindness as an essential attrib- 
ute to a husband ; they seemed to belong to 
the class wnich can endure a good deal of 
hard usage and enjoy an occasional domestic 
scrimmage. If any illusion of virginal Do- 
lores, " Amagita mia," and modest Spanish 
peasant girls, had lasted so long, St. An- 
thony's festival would have brushed it away 
like a cobweb. In the corners of the plaza 
we frequently saw an Andalusian lover give 
the punishment of blows to his sweetheart, 
who received them with cries, of course, but 
equally, of course, as a necessary sequel to 
her indiscriminate ogling. A few minutes 
afterwards she would be sitting with him at 
a table, wiping her eyes with her hand- 
kerchief, but tranquilly sipping wine. A 
good many young girls, in sets of six or 



IX SEVILLE. 113 

eight, all wearing wide hooped dresses of 
manifold colors, all with flowers in their hair 
and in their bosom, passed us in the opposite 
procession, and tried to attract our attention 
by look or word. If one of them thought 
she had succeded she would instantly turn 
her large, impertinent, black eyes, with a 
mocking glance, upon her companions, and, 
commiseratingly, bid them " adios ! " But 
there was more mischievous audacity in this 
than real boldness. Approach one and she 
would dart away and hide behind the skirts 
of her friends. Their dances, too, which the}' 
engaged in without masculine partners, were 
modest as well as pretty. All these girls, 
who never heard of the waltz or the polka, 
are perfectly acquainted with the intricate 
dances of the country. They love them pas- 
sionately, and they cannot pause within sound 
of a guitar without suffering St. Vitus of the 
feet. 

Withdrawn somewhat from the croAvd, 
leaning against Hercules himself, stands an 
old fellow idly thrumming his guitar. His 
tight trousers are belted in by a bright red 
girdle. He Avears a plaited shirt and no 
cravat. Under the hongo hat his white hair 
is combed down almost into his little, twink- 
ling black eyes. An old man, dried and 
wrinkled, is this guitarista, but he handles 



114 I^ SEVILLE. 

his instrument lovingly, and with no decrease 
from the dexterity of his youth. 

*' A dance, girls ! " 

Quickly they make up the requisite purse 
to pay for their amusement. The old musi- 
cian thanks them with a deep, grave voice 
peculiar to the aged poor of Andalusia, 
assures them they have done well to come, 
to him who can '' make tables dance," changes, 
his position so as to give his head a chance 
to fall back, and coughs. Eight girls form 
in two lines, each one with castanets in her 
hands, somebody shouts '' Honra!" and some- 
body else in a sharp, nasal voice, the voice of 
the Andalusian peasant woman, sings a 
seguidilla, the guitar tinkles, the castanets 
clack, and the dance begins. A vibrant,, 
delicious dance it is — a dance Greek girls, 
might have woven in a field near Syracuse.. 
The'dancers lifted their arms and approached 
each other, only to retreat again; raised first 
one foot and then the other, and displayed 
the most poetic and flexible attitudes. The 
guitar and castanets continued to incite them 
joyously ; the opposing waves rose and fell^ 
bent first to one side and then to the other,, 
with many diverse bewitching motions of 
heads and arms. Ah, to sec these Andalu- 
sian witcheries performed aright one must 
see the girls of the people dance them ! They 



IN SEVILLE. 115 

are not like the dancers of the sala, who are 
satisfied to mark the movements and keep 
time. They accent every posture, and they 
delight to tire themselves to the utmost limit 
of agility and grace. They form a circle 
about an imaginary hat that has fallen in 
their midst, and, advancing toward it, each 
girl makes a feint of picking it up, caressing 
it, holding it off at length ; now taking it off, 
now putting it on her head again. At the 
conclusion of each figure they join hands 
in a circle, turn half round, trembling and 
looking at each other with humid, ecstatic 
eyes. 

" Ole ! Ole ! " A crowd has collected about 
them, and utter exclamations like " Jump, 
my pigeon, jump ! " or " Long life to your 
mothers ! " But the girls hardly hear this 
accompaniment to their movements. They 
are in a tremor from head to foot ; they 
would like the dance to last forever. 

But the guitarista knows when he has 
earned his money. He stops pla3ang in the 
very middle of a figure. Cunning fellow \ 
He expects somebody will fill the hat again 
in order to see the rest. He miscalculates,, 
for the girls catch hold of each other and run 
away, laughing and shrieking, half-vexed, 
half-delighted, at having danced for *' San 
Anton." 



Il6 IN SEVILLE. 

And at that instant a boy on the other side 
began to scream Maleguenas, with a voice 
that was changing from treble to bass. 
Thither the crowd surged, ready to call down 
blessings on his mother if the song pleased 
them. 

Sometimes, we are told, the festival breaks 
up in a general dance, every one joining in, 
girls of eighteen and women of eighty, and 
then the old Alameda offers its gayest aspect 
— gayest and most innocent. The dance we 
had seen converted us, and we hastened to 
temper a judgment we had made earlier. Is it 
not perilous to offer a statement about the 
morals of a people on the unsure ground of 
observation ? To judge by the rough talk 
and behavior of these chulas and majos I 
might have been led to write that the Spain 
of to-day is the loose Spain of Guzman de 
Alfarache, but I waited a little. When we 
went away finally we felt that a tough strand 
of modern decency binds up these customs, 
at once simple and rough, of old world 
revelry. Had it been otherwise, we would 
have joined the group of reformers at Mad- 
rid, who esteem the feast a childish fashion, 
worn to the point of suppression. I think by 
calling it a childish fashion the reformers 
unwittingly defend it. Already too many 
innocent pastimes have been abolished, as 



IN SEVILLE. 117 

the world knows by the added dullness. But 
there is really no need to defend the festival. 
It will endure as long as Andalusia, for to 
such shreds as are left of their earlier en- 
chantments — among which must be classed 
the sports of '' San Anton" — the Spaniards 
cling with peculiar and praiseworthy stead- 
fastness. 



X. 



HOW subtile and fleeting are the charms 
of those abstract things, a square and a 
street, when you come to write about them ! 
1 cannot attribute the quality of bad taste to 
the numerous travelers who call Seville an 
uninteresting desert ; the city is a quiet plain, 
with a wonderful cathedral and a lofty tower 
to accentuate its general flatness. It makes 
no more lasting impression on the brain of a 
rapid traveler than does the landscape on 
the headlight of a locomotive. To us, how- 
ever, who lingered away the winter in Seville, 
her cathedral and Giralda soon lost their 
prominence, while corners and triangles of 
streets, quaint unpretentious dwellings, little 
squares, frowned upon by monotonous walls, 
grew dear to our hearts almost like features 
of home, and became our Seville. 



Il8 IN SEVILLE. 

Of the squares, a plaza behind the cathe- 
dral, shut in by the Alcazar and the arch- 
bishop's palace, made a delightful lounging 
place on warm mornings. It had no attrac- 
tions in itself ; a three-cornered piece of sandy 
grass, under fortress walls, with trees set in 
regular rows, that grew feebly, like Protest- 
ants in a Roman Catholic country. Hard 
benches without backs formed a sort of fence 
on the three sides of the plaza that was gen- 
erally destitute of human figures. But it 
counted one constant friend, an old fruit 
woman, who kept her stall there, and it could 
confidently expect to see, some time during 
the day, a priest in rusty soutane and wide 
three-cornered hat, who took his exercise 
within its boundaries. Beggars and guitar 
players never came to this plaza, but on 
Sundays and feast days a modest movable 
stall was set up directly beneath the flying 
buttress of the cathedral. A thin, old man, 
who ought to have been a hermit, kept it, 
and sold his wares, or offered them for sale, 
to the worshippers who strayed from the 
grand portal and the orange garden. These 
wares were waxen images and tapers, pict- 
ures of saints, rosaries, crucifixes ; all the 
religious objects used for funeral ceremonies, 
as well as waxen arms, legs, eyes, ears, and 
babies, for offerings at the shrine of a popular 



IN SEVILLE. 119 

saint for the recovery of a person or an 
afflicted member of the body. A friendly 
understanding existed between this old man 
and the fruit aunty. When business was. 
more than commonly dull he went over to 
her stall and orrumbled at the malevolence of 
his rivals in trade, the old woman at the 
church doors who had driven him away from 
that coveted stand, and, when his breath 
gave out, she would begin to vituperate in 
her turn. 

On ordinary days, as I have said, the old 
woman alone shared the plaza with us. She 
was always there in the daytime, and I think 
she slept under her bit of awning. It must 
have been the charm of the place that held 
her there, and not the love of gain, for if she 
sells oranges and mixes sugary drinks in that 
plaza to the end of time (and I suppose she 
will do so to the end of Jier time) the profit 
can hardly keep her out of the almshouse. 
In the season, that is, in April and May, she 
makes considerable hay while the sun of 
English tourists shines. The thirsty Inglesas, 
she told us with a chuckle, run out of the 
Alcazar straight into her arms. 

The Alcazar made no such dry impression 
on us, though we visited it on days warmer 
than the New England June. The halls of 
the old Moorish palace offered a better imita- 



I20 IN SEVILLE. 

tion of winter than all the rest of Seville's 
buildings combined, and its vaults, which 
some one has called the pantheon of Maria 
Padilla, were unpleasantly moist and cold. 
The gardeners in attendance never seemed 
to remember that we had been there before, 
and when we returned from a ramble in the 
formally lovely gardens, they were sure to 
sprinkle us with water by means of an in- 
fernal contrivance beneath the pavement, that 
has played its practical joke on royal and 
other famous shoes. Then they met us at 
the exit, hat off and Spanish grin on, in ex- 
pectation of a peseta. So we always came 
back to the plaza out of humor with oranges 
and sugared water, or any sort of liquid 
refreshment. 

This tiny plaza occupies the cardiac situa- 
tion, with reference to the other members of 
Seville's corporation, being encompassed by 
the Lonja, her belly of trade ; the cathedral, 
her brain ; the Giralda, her right arm, and 
the two streets which join here — one march- 
ing north through the city and the other 
across the Guadalquivir to the suburbs — her 
legs. Like a heart, it pumps the flood of 
life over the city, and recovers the waste 
again from these members, and no less like a 
heart that it beats silently. The calm brood- 
ing over this neighborhood is not the still- 



IN SEVILLE. 



ness of death. The portal of the archbishop's 
palace is sometimes quick with dispersing- 
priests. The Alcazar walls lose on familiar- 
ity their first resemblance to those of Bal- 
clutha, and the counting room of the Lonja 
seems but to be sleeping an enchanted sleep, 
from which it will wake up to be the centre 
of busy interests, and to throb again with the 
"quick pulse of gain." I know not how this 
impression of suspended vitality was con- 
veyed by the dormant plaza, unless the 
extravagant tales related of its teeming life 
in the Holy Week had something to do with 
it. A part of the charm lay there ; if it had 
been dead past waking we would have 
shunned the place. But w^e gazed upon the 
plaza as on the face of a sleeping child, con- 
tent to imagine how it would look with its 
eyes open, and w^e let it sleep on. 

To the charm of the purlieus of the cathe- 
dral that my pen has no power to describe, 
a great delight was added by the color which 
washed the whole, rich, old yellow ; painful 
to the eyes in the sun, but deliciously sooth- 
ing in the shade. Above this tapestry border 
the cathedral towered, a mass of heavy walls 
springing to parapets, castellated towers, 
pinnacles, and spires, all moulded, as it were, 
out of a Gargantuan cake of chocolate. To 
the amateur's kindling eye, this jumble of 



122 IN SEVILLE. 

confusing forms, this jaundiced construction 
of incongruous details, which are nearly the 
words which architects use to damn Seville 
with, stands a wonderful, mysterious drama 
in stone which Time has taken in hand and 
collaborated with the builder to preserve the 
unities. This lovely brown casket conspired, 
with the sun, to keep us outside in idle ad- 
miration, as if both feared that the gem 
inside, by its superior richness, would shut 
our eyes to the exterior picture and quench 
our shadows forever in its eternal shade. 

And, in truth, a spell more potent urged 
us when we finally broke the other and 
entered the cathedral, a spell that works 
across leagues of land and water, and would 
make one write an incoherent and hysterical 
description. The cathedrals we had already 
seen failed to prepare us for Seville. To 
name one Gothic cathedral of Europe sets 
the names of the others echoing, and I can- 
not call up one without being lost in a pro- 
cession. But the cathedral of Seville is not 
included. It stands alone. It shoots higher 
than its medieeval fellows ; it covers a wider, 
a deeper, and an isolated area of memory. 

The thought of its isolation was present 
while yet we were walking in Seville's aisles. 
The cathedrals of Milan and Toledo lost, 
with every visit, some of the atmosphere of 



IN SEVILLE. 



awe which at first enveloped them. Althoug-h 
painfully conscious that nine parts of their 
meaning were Greek to us, we yet came to 
speak of them familiarly, and to appraise 
their value in the horribly earthly spirit of 
comparison. Like partisans, we took sides 
in front of their very altars, and defended 
with heat whatever belonged particularly to 
each. Familiarity with them had made of 
us priests to whom there remained no mys- 
teries. Within the walls of Seville we felt like 
humble worshippers. Those other churches 
we felt we had bought with the fees to the 
sacristan, and we walked carelessly, even a 
little irreverently, about our own. The dim, 
rich vastness of Seville, from the curtain at 
the door to the recess of the high altar, was 
all a Holy of Holies. 

The spell was not broken when we began 
to walk about, examining by parts, because, 
owing to oversight or laziness on the part of 
the vergers, we were left alone to discover 
for ourselves the genius of the place. To 
gaze along the middle aisle, that infinitely 
receded ; to gaze aloft into the octagonal 
dome, that hung nearer heaven than earth ; 
to take the lateral aisles, chapel by chapel, 
and linger in each as long as one wished, 
without being advised of something better 
worth looking at farther on ; to pore over 



124 I^ SEVILLE. 

the rich marbles of the choir and the carvings 
of the throne, just as one might look over an 
illuminated missal ; to look at the pictures in 
the same spirit, without saying that one was 
good and the other bad : in brief, to see 
without criticising, to enjoy without judging 
— how delightful all this was ! 

But it was one of the pictures that brought 
down my soaring spirit. I had been looking 
at them with simple wonder, like a child who 
believed that they were portraits of saints, 
and not of models more or less spiritualized 
by poor diet. I had given a child's credence 
to the stories told of " The Descent from the 
Cross," a picture by Campana in the vestry 
of the sacristy ; that it had frightened 
Pacheco in the dusk, and that Murillo had 
often stood before it, waiting until Joseph 
and his companions should finish taking 
down the Saviour. I believed every word 
of these tales just as I believe the modern 
history of the destruction of the picture by 
Soult's soldiers and its restoration. But I 
came out of wonderland when we went to 
see Murillo's '' San Antonio," which has had 
a history almost as eventful. The figure of 
the saint was cut out, carried to New York, 
and offered for sale in the year 1874. The 
gashes of the thief's knife, though jomed by 
skillful stitches, are still visible. As I looked 



IN SEVILLE. 125 

at them, I remembered that ours is an age 
where child-like simplicity stands a very 
poor show. 

In the centre aisle, directly opposite the 
chapel where this Murillo hangs, stands the 
memorial stone of Ferdinand Columbus, the 
great son of a greater father, and, as a sort 
of compatriot, deserving of more melancholy 
emotion than we were able to accord him. 
Try as we might, we could not forget that 
he had been dead a number of centuries, and 
our grief was less than lukewarm. For the 
others, who have tombs, mortuary chapels, 
statues, or slabs, we could not affect a decent 
degree of interest ; the people commemorated 
by these symbols being principally arch- 
bishops and their auxiliaries, who had ruled 
the chapter, and had ruled it well, according 
to their epitaphs. We passed on, paraphras- 
ing the question Charles Lamb asked when 
a boy, rambling through a churchyard, 
'' Where lie the dignitaries who ruled it ill ? " 
More time would undoubtedly be spent in 
spelling out their forgotten names, if it were 
not for the chapel behind the high altar, 
which concentrates the mortuary interest of 
the cathedral. This sepulchral chapel, almost 
a church by itself, is a fifteenth century addi- 
tion to the pile, and most of the royalties 
who had in their lives an}^ good or evil to do 



126 IN SEVILLE. 

to Seville are buried or have memorials here^ 
Yet have the chapel gates opened to receive 
the bodies of some not royal, among whom 
is Maria de Padilla, the gentle and lovely, or 
vindictive and blood-thirsty, according as 
one is for or against that unhappy lady, 
doomed to extend her enemies and lovers 
beyond the grave. More solemn than any 
cemetery lying open to the sun is this vast 
charnel house, where the dead — many in 
open coffins -seem actually to have burst 
their cerements, and come forth to mop and 
mow in each other's faces, to carry on quar- 
rels that have arisen over which shall take 
precedence at the table of Death. A dim, 
foreboding gloom, not so much darkness as 
privation of light, creeps from the church 
over the pinnacles of the high altar, and 
gives birth to these grotesque ideas. No 
doubt St. Ferdinand lies perfectly quiet, as 
he is said to lie perfectly preserved in his 
silver coffin ; no doubt his son Alonzo has 
lost interest in metaphysics ; no doubt Blanca 
has given over his glib sophi^stry ; Padilla 
her tears, and all the company resigned 
themselves to their situation and to each 
other. No doubt — but when, as we stood 
by the railing to depart, a spent ray struck 
the spun gold hair of the Virgin de los Reyes, 
endowing it with the appearance of life, we 



IN SEVILLE. 127 

hurried awa}^ without looking back, for fear 
we should see the kings beneath the recum- 
bent marbles, in the exposed coffins, rise and 
exert a horrid ability to return to earth. 



XI. 



WE had never been windfalls in the pre- 
carious fortunes of the guides of 
Seville. We did not need them to direct 
our trips that had no particular destination, 
but always landed us in some interesting 
quarter. In fact, it seemed that we took 
more pleasure in losing ourselves than we 
would have gained from well designed ex- 
cursions. Our pride at getting around with- 
out them went before a fall one day, when 
such a catastrophe seemed less than ever 
probable. On this day we had gone to cast 
a final distinction between the beautiful pict- 
ures by Murillo, and the ugly, suppressed 
convent in which they are so badly housed. 
When we came out, the Plaza del Museo, 
with Murillo's statue in the center, lay before 
us, as we expected, but the Calle de las 
Armas, which leads in a straight line to the 
great thoroughfare of Seville, seemed to 
have sunk into the earth. Where was it? 



128 IN SEVILLE. 

Where it ought to have opened we could 
find only a narrow lane between high white 
walls, that was blocked by another wall, after 
it had run a few yards in the direction of the 
city. Returning to the Plaza, we said it was 
beneath our dignity to ask the way, and we 
plunged at random into a street on the 
opposite side. That little street branched 
and subdivided into a net-work of alleys and 
passages, among which we wandered for 
hours, never, apparently, getting nearer to 
the city proper, but catching glimpses of a 
people and a mode of life that were compara- 
tively new to our Sevillian observation. 

Heaven knows we had no need to explore 
this quarter to appreciate Sevillian poverty. 
The poor are all over Seville, and their 
wretchedness is in the very air. Yet the 
hot, dry sun makes picturesque objects of 
the loathsomest cripple and the filthiest beg- 
gar, and the visitor comes to regard them as 
the shadows of the oicture necessary to set 
off its high lights. An artistic crust forms 
over his sympathy ; he admires them as an 
artist might, and forgets to put his hand in 
his pocket. In the rich architectural dis- 
tricts, the church portals and public squares, 
the beggars, abetted by their surroundings, 
seem like models, to whom the traveler gives 
not alms, but a fee. Most of these beggars 



IN SEVILLE. 129 

gain a fictitious cheerfulness from the environ- 
ment. Some have an imp of wit that hunger 
cannot entirely dispel, and few of them can 
divest themselves of the national dignity, so 
absurdly out of keeping with dirt and rags. 
In the stifled quarter where we now found 
ourselves it was sadly different. There, 
poverty had no mock dignity, no bitter jest, 
only frowns and curses. There, want, with- 
out a smile, surrendered itself to starvation. 
It had been warm and sunny in the Plaza, 
but in these avenues of adversity, though 
there was heat, indeed, it was the heat of 
fever, and the chill of pinching need con- 
tended with it. 

The streets we were traversing Avere very 
narrow, so that the houses though no higher 
than barracks, were yet high enough to cast 
intermingling shadows, and keep the broken 
pavement always in the dark. For the same 
reason, filth and offal piled up in heaps before 
the grimy doorways, lingered damp and 
evil, never being exposed to the direct rays 
of the sun. The windows of the houses, 
mere square holes cut in the walls, likewise 
held each its rotting burden of old rags, 
decaying vegetables, broken pots and ves- 
sels. From this mass a greasy distillation 
oozed down the whitewashed wall, which 
absorbed it before it reached the ground. 



130 IN SEVILLE. 

The first floor of these grimy huts appeared 
to be divided into two cells, one of inner 
darkness which the eye could not penetrate, 
and the other, dimly lighted, that seemed, 
in every instance, to be used as a w^orkshop. 
The bench and tools were there, but rarely 
a workman. Shops of every kind were 
represented in these streets, squalid copies 
of those of the Sierpesj linen drapers, indi- 
cated by scarfs of vulgar hue, dangling in 
the wind, and dingy fringed towels hung up 
in the casement. There were fuel shops that 
sold small paper bags of carbon, and bun- 
dles of wood, three inches in diameter, and 
scarcely an inch thick ; provision shops, with 
dirty windows, displaying cheese, fish cooked 
in oil, a measure of Spanish beans, and a 
handful of eggs, that ought long ago to have 
been chickens. There was — it seems incredi- 
ble — a jeweler's establishment, and on one 
corner a cafe boasted green doorposts and 
three windows. Humbler places of refresh- 
ment were frequent. Except these, where 
men and women were lounging in sullen 
companionship in and out of the doors, none 
of the shops seemed to have customers. The 
few purchasers we saw were haggling with 
the hucksters of the paving stones. All 
down the street women had spread mats to 
hold beans, oranges, loaves of bread, shaped 



IN SEVILLE. 131 

like Roman lamps, and tiny squares of choco- 
late, and the pedestrian was forced to pay 
close attention to his feet for fear of treading 
upon something edible. 

By the multitude of these trafficking women 
the houses might be supposed to have emp- 
tied their inhabitants in the street, had not 
the windows, almost without exception, dis- 
played an animate bundle of rags above that 
inanimate heap before remarked. These 
were women who peered down at the strang- 
ers through suspicious black eyes, and inter- 
changed uncomplimentary remarks about 
them with their business sisters. The women 
at the windows seemed to be the aristocrats 
of this quarter ; their grade being denoted 
by their finding time to do something for 
themselves. The nature of the work did not 
invariably exile them to their own interiors ; 
they could prepare a simple puchero against 
their husband's return, or carry the invading 
comb into the tangled tresses of their chil-' 
dren, in the full glare of publicity. Especially 
when she was occupied in the latter duty, 
did the female aristocrat draw around her 
quite a little court of women. Children col- 
lected also, but they came to enjoy the 
screams and wry faces of the victim. From 
these employments the strangers were an 
attraction powerful enough to call aivay the 



132 IN SEVILLE. 

women, and to draw off the children. They 
gazed after us with sharp eyes and open 
mouths, and on our venturing to stop and 
put a question about the way, or making as 
if to enter a hovel, they drove us onward 
with prodigious vituperation. The men, on 
the other hand, displayed a certain surly 
politeness, so that when we grew tired of 
wandering up and down this miserable quar- 
ter, we applied for a guide among the male 
inhabitants to conduct us back to the light. 
Our choice, though made at random from a 
knot of idleis in front of a wine-shop, turned 
out to be a happy one ; Christiano, or 
Christianito, as he said he preferred to be 
called, making good his promise to take us 
algiina parte, anywhere, and entertain us on 
the way with a full recital of his family 
history. 

Christianito was a man of about forty, tall 
and thin, with a dryly humorous face of a 
dark and unnatural color. He wore on his 
head the gorro grande, large cap, which he 
removed at every street corner to gesticulate 
with, and lend vivacity to his explanation, 
that if we would take the trouble to go a 
very little way in this direction, and then 
give a vueltacita, a very little turn, we would 
have evidence of his surpassing ability as a 
guide. He said, and he evidentl}^ believed, 



IN SEVILLE. 133 

that we had been providentially led to him 
that afternoon, for having started out in the 
morning with money entrusted to him for a 
certain purpose by his wife, he had the mis- 
fortune to lose it, and at the very moment 
we accosted him he was racking his brains 
for some means to replace it, or, failing in 
that, to offer his Catujita (his little Kate) an 
acceptable excuse. When we asked Chris- 
tianito what he did for a living, he replied 
that his wife took in sewing in which he 
sometimes assisted her ; but he frankly con- 
fessed that he could not bear to work in a 
fashion so unbecoming a man. But as he 
had not been brought up to any profession, 
and not hQ^\x\^jorobado (hunchbacked), could 
not beg, he was forced to stifle his ambition. 
In response to a delicate question, Chris- 
tianito told us that his Kate was a master- 
piece of nature, well shaped, neither too tall 
nor too short, and well stocked with wit. 
She was a great comfort to him, and he had 
never regretted his choice ; yet he found in 
Catujita one great defect. What is that 
defect? "Jealousy," replied Christianito, 
gravely, " it goes on worse and worse. 
Twice in the last month she turned me out 
of doors {en la calle)'' 

The walk home occupied the best part of 
an hour, and we suspected that our guide. 



134 IN SEVILLE. 

calculating that the fee would increase in 
proportion to the length and the difficulty of 
the way, took us by a circuitous route. But 
he diverted suspicion by his conversation. 
Christianito was an admirable talker — an 
accomplishment rarely found in Spaniards 
of his, or, indeed, of any class — quick, piquant, 
entertaining, often witty, and exposing can- 
didly all of an illiterate man's various and 
changeable views and impressions. He was 
very curious to know what had brought us 
to Seville from that far distant part of Spain, 
America, and our pronunciation of the Span- 
ish language, which he took to be the dialect 
of that remote province, amused him very 
much. In return for answering his ques- 
tions we asked him many with reference to 
life in the unclean quarter where we dis- 
covered him. But on this point Christianito 
was non-committal. He shrugged his should- 
ers. Perhaps the quarter was unhealthy, 
and the inhabitants not so rich as an arch- 
bishop ; but what would you have ? People are 
born into the world with a certain lot, riches 
or poverty, and the best course they can 
adopt is to accept it patiently. Grumbling 
mends no bones. 

Thus, our guide was a philosopher and not 
a reformer. We were glad to take him as he 
was, his cheerful conversation acting like a 



IN SEVILLE. 135 

tonic on our spirits depressed by the grim 
region we had quitted. Turning into a 
familiar street we reluctantly dismissed 
Christianito. He had been a merry quip at 
the end of a miserable chapter. 

Like most tonics, Christianito was suc- 
ceeded by a deeper fit of depression than the 
one he had banished. The cemetery of 
Seville helped us to get rid of it. After that 
hurried walk in the cemetery of the living, a 
stroll in the cemetery of the dead seemed 
less awful. It even comforted us a little. 
Yet the cemetery of San Sebastian, spread 
on the plain to the north of the city, may not 
be said, except by comparison, to awaken 
an}^ but sad and sombre thoughts. It is a 
dismal place, without the natural beauty of 
Greenwood, or the studied sentiment of Pere 
la Chaise. Neither nature nor art take the 
time to beautify this necropolis, which re- 
sembles a city deserted by its builders im- 
mediately after they had laid the foundations 
of their dwellings. Plague, pestilence, or 
some other evil thing, seemed to have fright- 
ened men from raising a superstructure. It 
is an artificial Pompeii, only the cinders are 
carefully and reverently brought there, in- 
stead of being carted away. The dead are 
laid above ground, in niches cut out of these 
f(3undations, in rows, one above the other, to 



IN SEVILLE. 



the height of six recumbent men. This 
method brings down with crushing weight 
on the head of the solitary visitor the sense 
of his own mortality. He cannot conceal 
from himself that his case is desperate. It 
is six to one. 

We walked deep among the dead for a 
half hour, reading the inscriptions over the 
niches, that in each case sets forth the piety 
of the enclosed, accompanied by a sentiment 
concerning death, drawn from some Spanish 
writer, and confirming our first impression^ 
that Seville possesses no more originality in 
epitaphs than other cities. These inscrip- 
tions are at the same time permanent and 
temporary. The sentiment, as vt is imper- 
sonal, is engraved on the stone itself, but the 
name of the dead man, with the exposition of 
his virtues, is printed on a detachable plate — 
Death's door-plate — which can be removed 
when his lease expires, or sooner, if he fails 
to pay the rent. 

Just within the gate are the offices of the 
cemetery. These had that heartless, cold 
air, peculiar to places as well as to people, 
which see too much grief to be touched by 
it. Near by is the chamber where the dead 
person, in a coffin closed with hasps like a 
fiddle case, passes his first twenty-four hours 
as a cemetery citizen — that being the time 



IN SEVILLE. 137 

required by vSpanish law to be certain he is 
dead. The same time serves for the work- 
men to empty a niche of the bones of his pred- 
ecessor, and prepare it for his reception. By 
the gate, also, stands a chapel, in which a 
little wax figure of a man, with flames around 
him, the effigy of a soul in purgatory, begs a 
contribution for its relief. All these build- 
ings are against the wall of the cemetery, and 
between them and the first block of niches 
runs a paseo, broad and sandy, with a narrow 
strip of grass and a row of discouraged trees 
on either side. Here on Sundays, especially 
in winter, when there are no bull fights, come 
hundreds of Sevillians of both sexes, ostensi- 
bly to pay their respects to deceased 
relatives, but really to gossip and quarrel 
with friends and relatives who are living. 

After seeing that cemetery, I think most 
people will be content with life, however 
irremediable its evils seem to them, and there 
can be no doubt they will cheerfully endure 
it for a period long enough to ensure them 
against burial there. We departed from 
San Sebastian with hearts so full of gratitude 
as to have enriched all the beggars of Seville, 
if we could have carried it back without 
spilling. But in the walk across the plain, 
we came to what we took for the site of the 
Quemadcro, the platform on which Valdez 



138 IN SEVILLE. 

piled his fagots, and there we paused and 
poured out the precious ointment of our joy 
in living on a thing quite as abstract — the 
century in which we lived. We felt pro- 
foundly thankful that human bonfires are not 
a fashion of our day. 

It was not easy to call up the scenes, 
painted in black and red, that this platform — 
if it were the platform of the Quemadero— 
witnessed in that fiery epoch. It was not 
easy to fill the empty plain with the multi- 
tude, and the platform with the great per- 
sonages of the Church and Seville, but we 
did our best under the circumstances, and 
later on we made up the deficiency of apt 
reflection we deplored in the morning by 
reading Murray's Hand-book. 

Far easier had I found it at home, where 
that hand-book was a nausea, to imagine the 
a7ito-da-fe, than on the spot where the fiame 
lighted up the inquisitor's horrid smile. 

I do not know how far the reader cares to 
go in execrating Valdez, Archbishop of 
Seville, and it may be enough to say, that to 
this day the people of the city, who are 
modern otherwise in their choice of syn- 
onyms, use for the symbol of cruelty the 
name of that remorseless priest. As Inquisi- 
tor-general he compelled even cardinals to 
bend their haughty crests in suit for mercy, 



IN SEVILLE. 139 

and the people of Seville, indeed, all Spain, 
were like one neck beneath the axe which 
he wielded by the vast irresponsible and ill- 
defined powers vested in him as the head of 
the Holy Office. In a single year after 
Valdez had grasped the banner of the 
tribunal, he had so crowded the prisons of 
the country, from Valladolid to Seville, that 
in order to make room for the victims daily 
caught by his familiars, he was forced to set 
fire to the fagots in the northern and south- 
ern capitals. 

Then it was that the Sevillians had pro- 
vided for them an entertainment that dwarfed 
the fights of the bull-ring into mere pin-prick- 
ing. The populace abandoned to solitude 
the Plaza de Toros, and streamed out of the 
northern gate to the plain of San Sebastian. 
Princes, dukes and grand families rode forth 
with their children, and took their places on 
canopied balconies erected around the plat- 
form of fire. When all w^as ready, and the 
Inquisitor had taken his place, the prisoners 
began their march through the lists, buffeted 
and jeered by the spectators, not from hate, 
but because they dreaded the tyrant's suspi- 
cious eve. First came the penitents, who 
were to be reprimanded and set free, as the 
black gowns they wore denoted. Next, the 
victims who were to suffer fine and imprison- 



I40 IN SEVILLE. 

ment ; their garments were painted with 
downward pointing flames. In gowns paint- 
ed with flames darting upward, walked, with 
feeble steps, the poor creatures whose bodies 
were to be burned for the salvation of their 
souls. These halted in front of the plat- 
form, beneath the Inquisitor, while the oth- 
ers stood on either side. A sermon was then 
delivered by one of the archbishop's clergy, 
and at its conclusion a crier called over the 
names and crimes of the accused, following 
each man's name with the sentence which 
had been passed upon him. The sentences 
of death w^ere straightway carried into exe- 
cution. One by one, strong men, who defied 
the tyrant to the last; delicate women, who 
shrieked as the inquisitors laid hold of them ; 
all were taken up and bound in the midst of 
a pile of fagots, the torch was applied, the 
fire crept up, and — 

And — but what is the sequence to the 
account of these unintelligible horrors ? I can 
think of but one, and that a non seqiiitiir. It 
is pleasant to reflect that a priest in Spain to- 
day exerts but a personal influence. Like 
other men, he stands or falls according as he 
is possessed of human virtues or failings. 



IN SEVILLE. 141 



XII. 



SPRING was coming. Signs were abroad 
which even northern eyes could read. 
The orange trees were beginning to look 
more yellow than green as the fruit out- 
numbered the leaves ; the fronds of the palms 
waved with more queenly grace as they ap- 
proached in size the fan of Cleopatra. There 
were days of rain when the air struck cold 
and damp to the bones, alternated with clear 
days when the sun shone as if it were already 
June. On these days the sky no longer 
wore, as it had done in the past months, the 
look of a China blue eye, but gazed down 
upon us through orbs of a milder, yet deeper, 
a lovelier blue. It was time to show our 
ingratitude to Seville, the city that had 
sheltered us so well, to escape from it as 
from a prison, taking the key of the fields. 

The unrest peculiar to spring spread to 
our fellow-boarders — the priests — manifest- 
ing itself by certain twitchings of their robes 
to which there is no season, neither summer 
nor winter, by a minute but appreciable 
change in the angle of their tri-corners, and 
they were not unwilling to make a visit to 
the old convent of San Isidoro at Italica, 



142 IN SEVILLE. 

their excuse for j()inin<^ us in a dia dc campo^ 
'A (lay in (he country. 

I^>arly one m()rnin<r we set forth mounted 
on asses, crossed the iron bridge and clat- 
tered through Triana, greeted by as many of 
the inhabitants as were sober and stirring, 
with more respect, owing to the priestly 
convoy, than we were accustomed to from 
the surly natives, and with less mockery in 
the customary salutation of which they used 
the longer form ; (Juc no hay a novcdad ! Voya 
ustcdcs cofi Dios / And turning to *he right 
along an excellent road we soon had a 
distant view of the sequestrated convent 
Cartuja. 

At the donkey rate of travel some time 
miLst elapse before we reached the convent, 
but we did not wish to hurry. Tlu^ morning 
was lovely ; the broken hedges on either side 
of the road exhibited the cactus in every 
stage of growth and in every variety of the 
green color; the young olive orchards 
sparkled with dew ; and, moreover, we were 
forever turning back to catch Seville's white 
houses in the act, as it seemed, of hastening 
towards the cathedral, where the town is 
densest, to say matins. We passed now and 
then the high white wall of a farm house or 
country estate, and here and there we looked 
in through the open door at the squalor of a 



IN SEVILLE. 143: 

cottage or posada, but we met few travelers 
either on foot or mule-back, and this environ 
of Seville seemed to be thinly settled. 

It was the more startling-, therefore, during 
this silent ride, to turn a bend in the road 
and fall suddenly upon a manufactory in full 
blast ; the whirring of potters' wheels drown- 
ing the songs of the birds, for the convent 
dedicated to Our Lady of Las Cuevas is now 
used for turning out ceramics. It is in the 
hands of English capitalists who copy the 
patterns of antique Hispano-Moresque lustre 
to decorate modern money-breeding wares. 
The noble church is used for the workshop, 
and only the chapel remains intact. We 
lingered an agreeable hour there, examining 
the sculptures in niches and the carvings of 
the coro, but the robed portion of our party 
manifested entire indifference to these things, 
while they studied with almost childish 
curiosity the wheels, tools, truss, and every- 
thing in the church workshop. When we 
had mounted once more, and were following 
up the Guadalquivir towards Italica, a secu- 
lar member of the party inquired of a grave 
father if the sight of the convent so misused 
was not distressing. His reply seemed curi- 
ous : '* Why should it distress any one ? " he 
returned. ''It is answering a need of the 
times. Had they shut it up and left it to 



144 IN SEVILLE. 

decay one might reasonably grieve ; silence 
can never take the place of truth, but honest 
labor partly may." 

The village of Santi Ponce, which is the 
modern name of old Italica, lay about four 
miles further on, and the road thither, as 
well as the country on both banks of the 
Guadalquivir was uninteresting, or would 
have seemed so any other day but this — our 
first without the walls. At the convent of 
San Isidoro we dismounted, and the priests 
remained in the church while we went on 
foot to the village. Santi Ponce, built on 
the site of Italica, is a miserable collection of 
hovels whitewashed to the foundation, where 
there is a strong unpleasant juxtaposition of 
colors, the white wall and the black unpaved 
street. There were few inhabitants in sight, 
an old woman or two leaning over the lower 
half of a door cut in the Flemish fashion, and 
near the Casino a group of men loutish and 
ill-favored. We saw no children, but in 
traversing the hamlet we heard several, and 
were relieved of the fear of the extinction of 
this place, lowest in the order of villages.. 
Santi Ponce occupies but one of the seven 
small hills — the other six have gone to loam 
and garbage — upon which, like Rome, once 
stood Italica, a city of wealth and culture 
under the Roman domination. Scipio Afri- 



IN SEVILLE. 145 

canus founded this town as a retreat for his 
veterans, and its rapid growth must have 
surprised him, while it filled his pockets, if, 
as in modern times, the founder reserved all 
the corner lots. Italica gave birth to three 
Roman emperors : Trajan, Hadrian and The- 
odosius. Under Hadrian it became a Roman 
subject, and some of the overplus of deco- 
ration with w^hich he crowded Rome he 
permitted to remain here to awaken in the 
savage minds of the Iberians respect for his 
authority and veneration for his self-asserted 
divinity. For a time Seville was left far 
behind in w^ealth and population, but the 
pride of Italica went before a drouth. Its 
ruin dates from the change in the course of 
the Guadalquivir, which now finds its way 
many miles to the left, though formerly it 
bathed the walls of Italica. The ancient bed 
of the river is still discernible, and booths 
are erected there during the annual flicker 
of animation in Italica's ashes, the Fair of 
Santi Ponce. 

Italica's period of greatest prosperity was 
under the rule of the Moors, who named the 
city Ishbil the Old, in distinction from Se- 
ville, but after the river had spoiled the land, 
they quickly surrendered it to desolation, a 
more faithful master that has relinquished 
nothing except the stones of the amphithea- 



146 IN SEVILLE. 

tre, and even those had to be taken by force. 
Some still remain in its grasp, and the circu-^ 
lar sweep is still to be distinctly traced be- 
tween two hills. Different accounts are 
given of the disposition of the stone of the 
benches, and the facings of hewn stone of 
which this Spanish coliseum was constructed,, 
and it is probable that each account is true.. 
Guzman the Good quarried some to build 
the convent of San Isidoro, where he chose 
to be buried, and the corporation of Seville,, 
on two occasions, supplied themselves with 
the antique seats ; once for river dykes, and 
again, in 1774, to make a road to Badajos. 
A few stones still turn an edge to the sun- 
light, expectant of excavation, but more are 
entirely buried, and their mounds and the 
chasms whence their fellows were drawn, 
the whole overgrown with brush and weeds,, 
trace out the amphitheatre together. This 
arena of Italica is as disappointing as most of 
its contemporaries in various parts of the clas- 
sical world, none of them lending any assist- 
ance to the imagination when it seeks to call 
up the exciting scenes we know each has 
witnessed. 

To us, wandering hap-hazard over the 
mounds, came a young priest to announce 
breakfast, and we accompanied him very 
willingly to the convent, where, or rather in 



IN SEVILLE. 147 

a bare little room off the chapel, a sort of 
secular sacristy, a table had been laid. It 
was spread with those wonderful dishes of 
oil, tomatoes and eggs, with more than a 
sprinkling of red pepper — such as the Span- 
ish love, of which the village padre had the 
true receipt. Foreseeing our heretical taste,, 
our priests helped out the repast by cold 
chicken and a goodly provision of sausage, 
they had seen packed before leaving the 
Casa Carasa. We ate with appetites as 
lusty as those of the gladiators who used to 
refresh themselves near this very spot, after 
they had returned from a bloody bout in the 
arena. When these matters of life had been 
attended to, we could think of those of death, 
some notable names of people who are buried 
in San Isidoro hurrying us in mind from 
the first to the other dread extreme. Among 
them lie Guzman and his wife, and that 
beautiful martyr Dona Urraca Ozorio, burned 
by Pedro the Cruel. Ferdinand Cortez first 
found rest in peaceful San Isidoro, after his 
troubled and glorious career had closed at 
Castileja. His bones have been removed to 
Mexico, but the spirit of the conqueror still 
haunts the convent, where he was merely, 
so to speak, a casual guest, or a fleeting 
tenant. 

Returning to Seville by a different route,. 



148 IN SEVILLE. 

we were able to visit Castileja de la Cuesta, 
where Cortez died, poor and unhonored. 
Nothing impressed us there with the sense 
that the shade of the mighty adventurer 
revisits the spot where he spent his misera^ 
ble last years ; nothing spoke of his living 
presence there ; no villager could point out 
to us any of his haunts, nor the house in 
which he died. Perhaps the dead enjoy in 
a greater degree than the living the faculty 
of forgetting the miseries they once endured, 
and hover over only the places and people 
that gave them pleasure in Hfe. I cannot 
imagine any spirit getting pleasure out of 
Castileja, or wishing to return there. Yet 
from the little plaza on the summit of the 
hill, the view one obtains of Seville, her 
plains, and the Sierra Morena beyond, is 
worth all the squalor and wretchedness one 
must pass through, to get it. Paradise no 
longer seems so beautiful since a belief in 
Purgatory was pronounced to be superstition. 
We did not linger there all the afternoon, 
however, for the canon promised us a much 
finer view farther on; so, strongly opposed 
by our donkeys, we mounted again, and 
skirted Seville to the southwest, until we 
came to a bluff, on the edge of which is situ- 
ated the village of San Juan de Alfarache — 
where a long line of ruinous wall and a 



IN SEVILLE. 149 

shattered tower are all that remain of what 
was once the Moorish river key of Seville. 
At a quay at the foot .of the hill, one can take 
a boat back to the city, and as we started to 
climb to the monastery for the view of San 
Juan, a gay water party were just disem- 
barking. We reached the church without 
much effort. It is built on the brow of the 
hill, and from the terrace in front the canon 
pointed to the beautiful landscape open below 
us, with a pardonable expression of " I told 
you so." 

Really he had told us we should see the 
most beautiful natural picture in all the 
world, and he had not to be a Spaniard to 
say so. There lay Seville spread in the 
plain, like a lazy Sultana in her bath. All 
white she seemed at first in the ardent rays 
of the afternoon sun — but after a little, colors 
grew out of the colorless scintillations. The 
Moorish turrets sparkled like emeralds and 
turquoises, and the high pink Giralda lifted 
itself over all, like the massive, polished arm 
of a beautiful Goth. The green and gold 
plain extended behind the city to the horizon, 
where it rose with a slight undulation like a 
wave to touch the sky. Groves and planta- 
tions, distant as well as near, were so clear 
and distinct that we could almost count the 
trees, and yet we could not make out the 



150 IN SEVILLE. 

city of Carmona where it was designated for 
us, owing to that same African whiteness 
which blends so well with the sun. 

We crossed the village to descend, and 
were surprised to find what a povertystricken 
place it was. Often in looking at it from 
-Seville we had admired that little group of 
houses, hanging like a seagull on the edge of 
the river. We had not the same misgiving 
in regard to its perpetuity which we had felt 
for Santi Ponce. There are swarms of chil- 
dren in San Juan — swarthy, almost black 
young ones, thin and nearly naked, that 
remind one of a crowded nest of robins. Poor 
as the people are they live in what looks like 
a luxuriant paradise. The orange and olive 
gardens which surround the village looked 
more productive and abundant than those 
we had passed in the morning. 

The way back lay through an intervale 
among lovely little hills. On both sides, and 
extending to the summits, were fine country 
places, some with handsome summer houses, 
the blinds of which were tightly drawn, in- 
dicating that the time of migration from the 
heat of Seville had not yet come. Many of 
these places had ornamental gardens in front 
of the houses, and avenues of palm trees 
which led up from the gate-way. Mentally 
resolving to obtain permission to visit one of 



IN SEVILLE. IS I 

these deserted places, we crossed an immense 
orange grove that stretched almost down to 
the tide, and for the rest of the way back 
to Triana we rarely lost sight of the swirling 
torrent. 

The sun had just set when we reached the 
Triana bridge, and turned over our beasts to 
the muleteers waiting there. While the rest 
of the party hurried home we remained to 
watch the passers-by. Two streams of peo- 
ple meet here at this hour, the working men 
and women of Triana, who earn their bread 
in Seville, and the laborers of that city who 
work in the manufactories of Triana. Among 
them were many beautiful women, with Avon- 
•derful eyes that flashed opalescent, and their 
brilliant dresses and uncovered heads, each 
with a carnation or rose, made a lively, 
phantasmagoric procession. It was soon past, 
and the warm, human darkness of southern 
latitudes had fallen. 

Shadows crouched blackest where the 
houses of the Barrio of Triana came down to 
the very edge of the river ; on the other bank, 
white poplars behind a row of osiers swayed 
in the gentle breeze like kindly ghosts, whose 
pale silvery shrouds looked purple in the ob- 
scurity. The green wall of verdure made 
by the gardens of Las Delicias had grown 
into a black, impenetrable mass, and only the 



152 IN SEVILLE. 

Great River, as it swept on its majestic 
course, seemed, by the lights that gleamed 
and died on its trembling surface like the 
starts and exclamations of a troubled sleeper, 
to remember there was such a thing as day. 
Alarming but delicious was this sudden 
change from turmoil to quiet. We heard 
with regret the foot-fall of returning pedes- 
trians, and the rattling of chains of a boat 
about to leave the roadstead. The boat 
drifted away, the people glided past, and a 
silence clear and deep, like that of the stars, 
descended again. Now a dark shape — the 
boating party — makes its way up stream. 
The guitars, touched softly, give breath to 
the quaint, Moorish sequrdilla. The song 
floats low like a perfume, and mingles frater- 
nally with the perfume from the banks — 
compounded of flowers, of fruits and the 
spring-scent of the earth. It is the good- 
night kiss of sleepy nature. 



IN SEVILLE. 153, 



XIII. 



BY to-morrow the Duke of Montpensier 
will have returned from Madrid and 
closed the gates of his San Telmo garden 
upon us. To-morrow those palms and oran- 
ges, those walks and avenues will fade into 
memories, dimly seen like the smile of a 
woman at a bal-masque, behind the purple 
silk of her domino. 

To-morrow ! Ah, let us visit them again 
to-day. 

Never did that glorious garden of San 
Telmo seem as luxuriantly beautiful as it did 
when we went there for the last time, know- 
ing that it was the last. When we entered 
the garden, after passing through the large, 
light and common-place suits of the palace (a 
brick edifice in the Italian style, where the 
emptyings of galleries are hung, and Ary 
Scheffer is king) we received a sullen wel- 
come. The walks, which conducted to the 
avenue of the park, had scarcely left the trim 
lawn under the palace windows, before wild 
grass and creeping plants took them prison- 
ers ; the trees were swathed with parasitic 
vines up to their lowest branches, and the 
avenue itself appeared to extend but a short 



154 IN SEVILLE. 

distance, and then to end in an inextricable 
jungle. Nature had hung up a sign to warn 
off trespassers. Nevertheless, we disobeyed 
her. We climbed the rise of ground which 
obstructs the avenue, and which, covered by 
a bed of viscid leaves, gave the effect of a 
solid wall of verdure, and we had our reward. 
Beyond lay the garden, and we saw a land- 
scape where art is natural and where nature 
is artistic; where art has followed original 
instincts, where nature is tended, and where 
both have formed a garden that might be 
likened to a room which is neat but not too 
well kept. But that is a disproportionate 
comparison, for in this oasis there is an intoxi- 
cating mystery — a mystery that draws us on 
like desire. 

I do not know how many acres this garden 
of San Telmo contains within its walls. 
They cannot be many, and with that vague 
statement I am content. In truth, I should 
be sorry to read an intelligent explanation 
Avhich would clear up the artifices of the 
gardener; which would thread the labyrinth 
of its walks and allees. Perhaps the wish to 
keep San Telmo for a delightful torment be- 
longs to the family of wire-drawn sentiments, 
but I think otherwise. There is a reason for 
it which love accepts if curiosity does not - 
and to know who suffers from a conflict be- 



IN SEVILLE. 155 

tween love and curiosity, one has only to 
read the myth of Cupid and Psyche. Who is 
so impious as to question why the Creator of 
the world set a stream to meander through a 
particular valley ? Who thinks of Eden save 
as a mysterious beauty ? 

I hesitate to compare San Telmo to Eden, 
where some serious, some worshipful influ- 
ences surely breathed in the air. San Telmo 
is not a serious garden, and from it, as from 
Saracenic architecture, all solemnity and 
aspiration are banished. Here Adam might 
have been able to conquer his inclination to 
prose, and Eve would have thought only of 
putting flowers in her hair. 

See yonder tall elm, trained to bend like a 
poised scimitar over the path ; see that 
knoll, composed of masses of intertwined blue 
and yellow flowers. San Telmo is a Moorish 
garden, and no race but the Moors would 
have indulged such dainty feminine fancies. 

It seemed to me— but that may have been 
mere lack of observation — there were few 
birds or winged insects, and little animal life 
of any kind in this park, as if the Arabian 
gardeners had wrested the precinct from 
wildness to bend it to their Koran-ordained 
ornamentation. The trees are not allowed 
to grow naturally, except in the second rank 
and in the thickets. Those bordering the 



156 IN SEVILLE. 

walks possess no wild or common traits. 
They follow, in the outspread of their bran- 
ches, the decorous lines of stuccoed walls; 
elms join their highest hands in the arch ; 
palms tower in the midst of flowering shrubs 
like minarets over villages; the low walls of 
the bitter oranges, with their gleaming yel- 
low fruit, constitute a broad base to sustain 
the slender pillars and the acute angles of 
the pines, laden with stalactites. Here we 
walk through an enormous Hall of Ambassa- 
dors, done in green and purple and picked 
out in gold. 

Is a conventional picture called up by these 
words? San Telmo is not a conventional 
garden. It may once have presented a close 
copy of a gaily tinted interior. Happily, 
nature has interfered and blended colors and 
softened outlines until the original plan has 
faded into a vague impression. The Alham- 
bra, as w^e see it, is doubtless more beautiful 
than in Boabdil's time, when the colors were 
fresh. And I prefer San Telmo in its present 
period of transition. One may be glad that 
once it was pruned and trimmed into an ab- 
normal, fantc^stic, open-air in-doors, but one 
is more apt to be glad that the knife operated 
years ago. Farther within, where the walks 
grow narrower, the impression of a set design 
entirely vanished. The sunlight flickering 



IN SEVILLE. IS7 

through rifts in the leafy roof, gave 
shades to innumerable colors of green. The 
breeze brought us whiffs of spicy odors, the 
breath of oleanders and Linderaxa's roses. 
We seemed to be drawing near some temple 
where a heathen rite, the incense of which 
already intoxicated us, was celebrating, as Ave 
entered those cool, silent depths of dark 
verdure where the light faded. Nevertheless 
it' was -always morning in that enchanted 
park. It had a morning breath like an in- 
fant's, sweet, odorous, moistly warm. The 
sky and the leaves, even at midday, blended 
into a beautiful color which was neither blue 
nor green. And from those mysterious vis- 
ions of cypress glades that we saw far, far 
down behind countless layers of leaves there 
arose thin bluish vapors like ghosts. An- 
other sign peculiar to morning. 

Seek out in this sensual forest, an arbor 
covering a hillside where the roots of the 
cypress trees have returned on themselves 
and made a tent in the air — a crusader's tent 
guarded by a gigantic tree, the Templar of 
the garden. No melancholy funereal tree is 
this majestic cypress which would dwarf the 
grave of an}^ but a god. It is old, and with 
the passing of the centuries, it has grown 
more firm and more colossal, showing its age 
only by the increased grayness of its bark, 



158 IN SEVILLE. 

by the division of its trunk into sections, a 
glorious assemblage of white and furrowed 
trunks, like the columns that support the 
roof of a Gothic cathedral, and by an added 
depth of blackness to its sombre and massive 
verdure. After having seen this tree, I be- 
lieve in the centuries of Methusaleh. 

Might all I have said about San Telmo be 
written of other gardens? If so, it is false. 
Other gardens have in them something spirit- 
ual ; San Telmo is sensual. Its sward is softer, 
its mossy cushions deeper, its shade gayer 
than any place save Irem. The sunshine falls 
there like flecks of light on dazzling tiles, the 
shades are only purple iridescenses. And 
they are not for thought. A book would be 
out of place in San Telmo. Abdoolah of 
Khorassan might have received his first 
disgust of literature while walking in these 
adorable avenues. 

Nature here is a coquettish nymph, trip- 
ping ever ahead and ever looking back over 
her shoulder with an inviting smile on her lips. 
Follow, but do Jiot chase her, do not make 
the mistake of pursuing her in earnest. San 
Telmo has nothing to offer to serious people, 
to fanatics or lovers. Copy the smile on her 
lip, call to her with gay words, and if she 
still advances, seat yourself upon some 
mound, or in an arbor, or against a mossy 



IN SEVILLE. 159 

bank, and wait till she steals slowly behind 
you, stifling her laughter (the gush of a 
brook) and lays her white hand on your 
shoulder — soft as the caress of rustling leaves 
— and whispers in your ear vague promises 
like the murmur of the breeze through the 
young grass. The nymph of this garden will 
never disturb you by perplexing and 
unanswerable questions. She is no Egeria to 
give advice. But she will make you her 
sultan, and with soft accents, wuth tender 
caresses, that heat and calm at the same in- 
stant, she will wrap your soul into a bliss that 
to be conserved must not be solved. Gradual, 
but irresistible, is the working of her charm. 
With her flickering and fascinating wand she 
metamorphoses man — before a discord in the 
harmony of these gentle surroundings — into 
her creature, while her soft breath fans his 
very soul, and steals him away from the 
world. Where is the world ? What is it ? 
We are not of it. By her magic she quickens 
qualities we did not know we possessed, or 
which we thought life had crushed. She re- 
stores almost a feminine delicacy to our ears, 
to our eyes, to our brains ; we give ourselves 
up to a momentary innocence ; we live as 
plants live, as charming young domestic ani- 
mals live, without fear, and without envy. 



l6o IN SEVILLE, 

We do not think, we do not moralize, and we 
do not wish to act. 

At our feet the tiny mosses, the grotesque 
fungi, the ferns, inspire us with the feeling of 
relationship. Are they only plants, or are 
they children of strange shapes, radiantly 
playing in their eternal youth ? And above 
our heads the trees take many human forms, 
but all caressing ; the paternal cypress, the 
virginal poplar, the pensive beech, the weep- 
ing willow — by some such attributes the 
Faun must once have designated them. 

And all the time the garden lengthened 
and widened into a continent, and we saw 
through the impenetrable roof to the sky — 
bright, but soft as a baby's fingers, that 
reached down and grasped the topmost 
leaves. Ah, we were young, we were happy 
— we dreamed ! we dreamed ! 

Somewhere within this garden, but I could 
not tell the seeker how to find it, there is a 
pond of bituminous water, with a green knoll 
on one bank, where the dryade of San Telmo 
has made herself a garden of gay colored 
flowers. The enchanting spot is surrounded 
by proud elms and birches, whose tops bend 
over and make a vast canopy, beneath which 
sleeps the nymph. The pond is full of water, 
still and black, and Egyptian lilies fringe its 



IN SEVILLE. l6l 

edge where the vulgar bulrushes have left 
them space to swim. 

On the other bank rises a singular aggre- 
gation of tree trunks, like a tower. The 
branches form almost the angles of architect- 
ure, and the square mass of foliage above 
constitutes a verdant mirador. The trunks 
of the trees are swathed with lichen, in fes- 
toons, and from every fork of the branches 
droop mistletoe and ivy in wild arabesques. 

With her finger on her lip, the dryade 
pointed out to me that mirador where, behind 
the lattice of vine and leaf, near the cool 
water, the jealous Arab-Sultan of this wood 
shuts up his princess. Reclining by day on 
the knoll I fancied I heard agitating sounds 
proceeding from that tower, which is a dun- 
geon ; laughter like the gush of a fountain ; 
tinkling of bracelets and girdles of precious 
metals ; sighs ; and once I saw, as if a white 
finger had brushed aside a leaf, the flash of 
an eye on the water, like a shooting star trail- 
ing its fiery wake. 

If I could have contrived to watch a moon- 
light hour on that knoll, who doubts — I do 
not — but that I would have seen Zorayda 
come down to the water's edge, mirroring 
the crescent in her full eyes — breathing 
on the night a perfume as of flowers? 



l62 IN SEVILLE. 



XIV. 



THE brilliant spring sun put torpor in our 
blood, and notwithstanding the presenti- 
ment we had of future regret for time wasted, 
we lay all our waking hours staring at the 
sky. About this simple act which might 
have seemed impertinent as well as lazy at 
home, there appertained in Seville a certain 
sort of power. For, though we were always 
vanquished in the end by the implacable in- 
tensity of the light, yet so long as we could 
look the sky seemed to retreat and its azure 
grew deeper, like the hue on the cheek of a 
self-conscious beauty. This unequal and hu- 
miliating contest was carried on ol mornings 
in the patio of the Carasa, over which had 
not yet been drawn the velarium or awning 
roof, and we varied it by withdrawing to our 
oratory rooms, ostensibly for a siesta, but 
really to stare out of the narrow window at 
the narrow street, which baked and burned 
and seemed to try to escape from the fiery 
sun shower by crowding as closely as possi- 
ble up to the stuccoed houses. The donkeys 
followed this example and edged leisurely 
along the walls, leaving only a narrow path 
in the full glare for the unhappy pedestrian. 



IN SEVILLE. 163-. 

And as he mopped his dripping brow we 
drained an unglazed jug of cold water and 
laughed, so hard our hearts had been baked 
in this oven of Seville. 

We were thrown upon our own resources 
in these eventless days. The cadets remained 
indoors, pretending to prepare for the alge- 
bra examination, and the priests slept all 
night and most of the day, in order to lay up 
a store of strength for the arduous labors of 
Holy Week, which was near at hand. Clearly 
there was nothing left for us but to dream 
away the hours in the Carasa's portico, but 
we foresaw the day of repentance and some- 
times forcibly broke the drowsy spell. 

It was in one of those spasms of reform 
that at noon of the hottest day we had ex- 
perienced, we stumbled upon a square to the 
south of the Nueva, a tiny square white as 
lime could make it, bounded by two-story 
white houses and looking as if it had been 
scooped out of a sugar-loaf to serve as a bowl 
for a cover of lapis-lazuli sky. There were no 
trees in the square, and there were no green 
blinds to the houses, and yet its color w^as so 
splendid as to remind us of Seville's African 
descent. It was a market day, and fruits and 
vegetables in many varieties were exposed 
for sale there, which were of colors gorgeous 
enough to complete the intoxication of aa 



164 IN SEVILLE. 

already drunken impressionist. Olives- 
large, lovely olives that had by good luck 
escaped the oil mill, and deep green melons 
formed an enchanting bed, on which had 
been thrown in confusion and carelessly, but I 
think with an eye to effect, clusters of clear, 
yellow grapes, like amber beads ; tangerine 
oranges with coats of red-gold reminding one 
of the flavor within, and pomegranates that 
had burst their rinds in falling and spilled 
some rubies for the first marauding hand. 
Near the centre of the square the vege- 
tables were heaped, and mats piled high 
with chick-peas, like a pale-gold rampart, 
by accident or design, separated the 
vulgar from the aristocratic classes of this 
gorgeous kingdom. Yet there were inter- 
lopers, as there always are, even in the crhne 
de la crhne, and these were the fiery red pep- 
pers which swung down in garlands and 
touched with the least movement the foot of 
Monsieur Melon, or grazed the face of 
Mademoiselle Pomegranate. Moreover the 
grapes — for there are always aristocrats who 
lean toward the people — scaled the rampart 
and hung in heavy clusters of a bluish color, 
or in bunches which were of an amethystine 
hue, almost within reach of the flaunting cab- 
bage and the vulgar onion. At the first glance 
it all looked like the contents of an enormous 



IN SEVILLE. 165 

basket emptied in the square. But a second 
look showed that the pile was divided into 
many heaps, beside which proudly sat the 
fruit sellers, some of them as gayly attired as 
their vegetables, protected from the sun only 
by their paper fans held against the cheek. 
They had been sitting there the whole morn- 
ing and not a woman had been sun-struck 
yet. As the sun climbed they advanced the 
little fan against him, and continued chatter- 
ing with that Andalusian volubility which is 
graceful even in the market women. 

The same gayety and animation was visi- 
ble everywhere throughout the city at the 
approach of summer. A great many of the 
ordinary occupations of housekeepers were 
carried on in the balconies, in full view of 
the passers-by, and our eyes found nothing 
to hinder them from looking through the 
large grated windows and glass doors into 
the interior of the houses. As we paused to 
look into a patio with marble columns, which 
was crowded with flowers, the skins of 
tomatoes, which some one in a balcony was 
peeling for dinner, would fall at our feet, or, 
by bad luck, on our heads, but as this was 
equally apt to befall the oldest and gravest 
citizens, we concluded it was not meant as a 
gentle hint for the strangers to move on. 
Every body looked in the windows at girls 



l66 IN SEVILLE. 

sewing or playing the piano or the guitar ; 
but nobody seemed to regard this as intru- 
sive ; on the contrary, all continued their 
work without self-consciousness and without 
annoyance. 

Pinks in the balconies, and myrtle, pome- 
granates, and oleanders grouped about a 
marble basin in the centre of the patios, 
where a slender thread of water rose and 
fell, worked a wonderful transformation in 
these old streets of Seville. It was difificult 
to believe they were the same streets which 
had looked so tortuous and dark in the 
winter. But the ancient buildings had a 
character too marked for us to ever mistake, 
having once seen them. Our confusion arose 
from perceiving what a gay interior the 
rough walls, with coarse carvings near the 
roof and over doors and windows, frequently 
enclosed. The night time, however, was the 
real festival of the patios. Then walking 
about the streets was like a promenade 
through a succession of drawing-rooms. At 
this season the family bring down sofas and 
chairs, upholstered in horse-hair, and set 
them, along with the piano, in the arcades, 
while cane-seated chairs and the beloved 
rockers are scattered about among the palms 
and oleanders. Bird cages hang from the 
shrubbery, and quinques on the piano, candles 



IN SEVILLE. 167 

everywhere, and the great lantern suspended 
near the centre, light up a true Andalusian 
scene. With the linen awning striped with 
gay colors, called in Spanish a toldo, the 
floor tiled with bright contrasting marbles, 
the numberless flowers and the thick leaves 
of hortensia and orange, and with— ah, with 
the beautiful Sevillian ladies in summer 
gowns of high colors, flitting about like 
human flowers, these patios are enchanting 
as Irem ! Guitars suspended on the walls 
cast brilliant reflections out of the shadow as 
the light glinted on their varnished surfaces, 
and beside them hung the brown disks of tam- 
bourines. Everything betokened the love of 
life ; everything invited to the song or to the 
dance, and we were often unbidden, but none 
the less welcomed spectators of the gay 
measure and listeners to the sentimental carol. 
I say " we," but really these guests at the 
gate included all chance pedestrians, who 
were at liberty to stop to listen to the music 
without giving offence, and when it ceased 
go on their way. 

As April grew older the fierce Andalusian 
sun waxed more terrible. With every turn 
he seemed to crack a whip-lash of fire that 
drove us with tingling faces into the refuge 
of the shadowy Carasa. The Cura laughed 
at me when I complained of the heat, and 



l68 IN SEVILLE. 

bade me remain until the true summer came 
if I wished to comprehend the might of the 
sky monarch. " Wait," he said, ''until it is 
so hot the}^ are obliged to cover the Sierpes 
with an awning." 

At night it grew decidedly cooler, and 
when we were not making a tour of the 
patios, we used to go down to the river bank 
where crowds flocked to breathe the refresh- 
ing breeze. This was a most romantic prom- 
enade of moonlight nights, when the provi- 
dent alcalde puts out the lamps. On the stone 
benches along the wall that separates the 
walk from the quay, many women were sit- 
ting, that seen in the dim light under the 
trees and in a moment of silence, resembled 
pretty reclining statues b}^ a modern sculptor. 
There were not many moments of silence, 
and the pretty uncovered or lace veiled 
heads were commonly nodding in rapid 
movements like a humming-bird's, and black 
eyes flashed and white teeth glistened in the 
checkered moonlight, while silvery voices 
and repressed outbursts of laughter echoed 
along the line. 

One night we walked here with Don 
Ceferino, the cadet, and we knew not whether 
to be ashamed or diverted by his behavior. 
At his caprice he would stop before any 
woman and give her an expressive glance ; 



IN SEVILLE. 169 

when she did not look up he would attract 
her attention by rapping his cane on the 
pavement. No one seemed to feel insulted^ 
but all either smiled pleasantly in return for 
the implied flattery or laughed outright,while 
a few more forward answered his grotesque 
gesture of admiration with absurd grimaces, 
which mightily pleased their neighbors and 
sent our military friend off into a roar of 
laughter. So frank and mischievous seemed 
to be both parties to this childish game, that 
it would require a stern pessimist to discover 
any harm in it. But in my opinion there are 
no pessimists in Seville, especially in spring ; 
the air is fatal to them. 

Early in the evening we followed every 
body to the promenade of Las Delicias. 
Those gardens which we had always loved 
were a thousand times more attractive now 
in their spring garb that had come no man 
knew when. Roses and carnations were 
blooming everywhere, in the plants and in 
the cheeks of the Sevillians, who had Avashed 
off the protective coats of cristilla they had 
worn in the winter. Many ladies whom we 
had often seen driving in their carriages in 
the afternoon now came on foot with their 
children. The younger beauties also became 
pedestrians, coming to the paseo in parties 
of two or more under the escort of an old 



lyo IN SEVILLE. 

aunt or mother. Behind these parties hovered 
the youths waiting for a sign of encourage- 
ment to come forward and join the group. 
Other ladies who had arrived at the age of 
disinterested gossip take their seats in chairs 
arranged in circles, and hold their tertulias 
under the trees. 

For a time the scene is a very animated 
and changing one. There is much walking 
about and shifting of places, but at length 
the tertulias are filled; Casilda has summoned 
the right young man ; her old parent has 
secured a seat to her taste, and the multitude 
have settled themselves for two or three 
hours' placid enjoyment. Nobody moves 
anything but his tongue for that space of 
time, except the boys who carry about lighted 
matches for the smokers' accommodation ; or 
the old women running up and down, prais- 
ing their fruits and dulces; or the Avaiters of 
a neighboring cafe bringing ices and sherbets 
to their patrons. It is entertaining to follow 
these waiters on their rounds and hear the 
orders they take for different drinks, all 
harmless as water, but none of them water — 
pshaw ! The Spaniard is sober, but he has a 
mortal aversion to drinking water clear — he 
always puts something in it, the favorite 
thing being sugar-curls, which each individ- 
ual seems to call by a different name — azu- 



IN SEVILLE. 171 

carillos, espenjados, doledos, are some of 
them — but there are piany other designa- 
tions, and all of them mean nearly the same 
thing-. 

But what have we to do with the com- 
monplaceness of drink? The Spanish moon 
is up and throwing her spell on the people. 
In every group a guitar softly tinkles ; in the 
mysterious walks promenaders show their 
gliding shadows; tender couples, in tune to 
the music, are cooing on chairs and benches, 
and the scene has all the luxuriance of ro- 
mance which poets have taught us to look for 
in Spain, and which we would weep not to 
see. 

■* -Tf ^ -Jf -X- -X- ■«: 

So we staid on — lingering irresolute, with 
trunks half-packed, meaning to go each da}^ 
to escape the heat and the crowd, and 
charmed into remaining yet another day, by 
the moon as it came to rise. The days were 
full of regret for wasted time; the nights 
were full of moonlight. 

Meantime, portents of summer thickened. 
Tourists were upon us — tourists with bulky 
note books, a glance askance at which re- 
minded us that we could not add a foot to 
the stature of La Giralda nor a color to the 
Alcazar without being found out. A party 
of German travelers were at the Madrid, and 



172 IN SEVILLE. 

at Mariana's — so our old friend, the cadet, 
stopped on the street to tell us — two young- 
Englishmen, in knickerbockers, had engaged 
board. Lastly, a sacristan's assistant, a pal- 
try fellow who had seen us scores of times 
hand-in-glove with the archbishop, came for- 
ward one day when we chanced to stray into 
the cathedral and inquired if the Inglesas cared 
to step into the sacristy to see the Pacheco ? 
That decided us, and doubt disappeared. 
The choice was ours no longer. Adios, Sevilla, 
we said, and added, with full hearts hasta la 
otra vista! But, ah ! we said this in English, 
for people say what they mean, in their native 
tongue — " Good-by, Seville, and may we see 
you soon again ! " 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 
I. 

WE went to Toledo in the winter when vis- 
itors are advised to stay away. The 
weather treated us very considerately, how- 
ever, and we have no complaint to make of 
it. The citizens of the capital of the Visi- 
goths are much sharper and colder than the 
weather. It is hardly an exaggeration to say 
that the Fonda de Lino — the barrack which 
outrages the name of hotel — is a den of 
thieves. It gave us animated beds, it sup- 
plied nine meals of beans which we must eat 
or starve, and it charged Paris prices for 
both. But — chiefest indignity — it introduced 
us to Alexis Amaudry. 

Alexis Amaudry was an " illustrious Gaudis- 
sart ;" he sold a premiere qiialite of sparkling 
sillery, and came twice a year to Toledo. He 
was so polite as to offer his services as guide, 
and for that reason, and because he was the 
essence of good nature and full of poetry, we 
tried to be grateful to him. Nevertheless 
Alexis Amaudry was an unmitigated bore. 



176 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

He never talked of wine, but constantly of the 
picturesque, of which, as well as chocolate, 
he was passionately fond. Through him we 
made the acquaintance of all the chocola- 
terias of Toledo. 

That first afternoon Alexis carried us to the 
sword manufactory, although we longed to 
pay a preliminary visit to the cathedral. On 
the way w^e passed under the Gate of the 
Sun, but we were not yet prepared to admire 
its simple yet massive proportions. The gate 
stands half way between the steep ascentto the 
Alcazar and the steep descent to the bridge 
of Alcantara, and our untutored minds reck- 
oned it a rude construction of brick which 
we could not place, neither with the dainty 
monuments left by the Moors, nor with the 
rugged but noble ruins that are Gothic. 

We did not cross the river, but held along 
the sloping highway to the Cambron Gate, 
whence we emerged from the city and 
scrambled down, accompanied by dislodged 
pebbles and showers of dust, to a road that 
winds in the fertile vega between the walls of 
the city and the Tagus. This wide and well- 
kept road follows around the upper half of a 
circle marked out by grass-grown hummocks, 
but so dimly that scarcely any idea is pre- 
sented to the mind of him who hears that this 
was the Roman circus in Marcus Fulvius' time 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 177 

when Toledo was Toletum. The circus is 
like Toledo ; so old and so far gone in decay 
that it deadens rather than quickens the im- 
agination striving to resurrect its past. The 
Primate City chokes the mind with a thick 
dust of concentrated antiquity. If I had been 
told that its hill was Ararat and the town 
upon it the dust heap of the Ark, 1 would 
have accepted the statement with stolid 
credulity. 

Such a state of mind has its drawbacks. It 
renders disappointing every thing not of 
the oldest. Where so much was too antique 
to longer count among things of account, I 
got the impression that the Fabrica de Armas 
was a contemporary of the circus, and used 
to furnish weapons to its gladiators. I felt, 
not a surprise merely, but a bitter pang, 
when I saw that the Fabrica is still above 
ground, an ugly modern building that might 
stand in Connecticut without exciting remark, 
and engage in supplying the wants, in the 
knife and fork line, of the people of this gener- 
ation. How can one keep in mind the romance, 
brave deed, noble life that a Toledo blade sug- 
gests, after one visits the prosaic surroundings 
where the sword was forged and tempered ? 
If I tried, I mio:ht succeed in describino^ the 
various departments of the factory ; (Alexis 
dragged us through them all) I might say 



178 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

that the smiths have their forges on the 
ground floor and the pattern makers and 
workers in aqua fortis have theirs on the 
second floor. 1 might tell how many men 
are employed, but the result I would obtain 
from these statistics is one I wished to forget 
— that I had visited a poor second rate manu- 
factory whose past glory is tarnished by a 
modern struggle for existence. Such vague 
ideas as I gathered of the workmen and their 
methods I made haste to forget upon regain- 
ing the plain, and T eagerly relaid the stones 
of my imagined workshop fit to give swords 
to the Cid, to Alonzoof Cordova and Medina 
Sidonia. 

We did not return to the city as we had 
gone out, by the Cambron, but turned to the 
right and scaled a steep embankment under 
the frown of a lofty black fagade. This was 
St. John of the Kings, built by Ferdinand and 
Isabella as their sepulchral chapel, but in 
which they are not buried. We walked the 
length of the ugly, blind, west wall of the 
building, and vigorously pounded the knock- 
er of a heavy but half decayed door. In 
response, a woman leaned out of a window 
over the gate, and, without speaking, threw 
down a great iron key. Alexis instantly fitted 
it into its ward, we stepped within, and the 
woman pulled to the door, leaving us to feel 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 179^ 

our way down a short flight of steps in almost 
total darkness. When our eyes had suited 
themselves to the faint light, we found that 
we were in the museum, or curiosity shop, 
of the old Franciscan convent. Broken tiles, 
smashed columns, fragments of Moorish well- 
curbs and bits of carving littered the floor, 
and a rude bench was next to the wall. Under 
an arch at the farther end a subdued light 
entered. It was a pointed Gothic arch, and, 
passing through, we obtained a vista of many 
Gothic arches — the cloister of the convent,, 
a gem of Isabella's building. 

The part surprise has to do with our pleas- 
ure can hardly be overestimated, and, I think, 
we needed just such an ugly husk as the out- 
side of this cloister in order to appreciate its 
jewel-like beauty. Much to the relief of 
Alexis, who had been, in a measure, cast 
down by our indifference in the sword works, 
we did not repress the exclamations of delight 
that rose to our lips at sight of these exquisite 
marble corridors. The cloister is Gothic, but 
Gothic in little. No awful solemnity reigns 
in these arches, but the builder displays a 
human, even a tricky, spirit ; he seems to 
have played a little with his art, but without 
vulgarizing it. The walls are low, the arches 
loving, the columns slender to fragility, and 
the man who built here could have had na 



l8o THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

sympathy with the haughty Ximenez. Luck- 
ily, the cardinal did not see this cloister until 
after it was completed and had received the 
sanction of Isabella's approval. Nowhere 
else in Gothic art can one find such a grace- 
ful bending of its stateliness, without loss of 
caste, to the small, the modest, the light. 
This Franciscan cloister is the child — the only 
child — of Gothic architecture. All other 
forms of it are austerely grown up. 

The restorers have been called into these 
cloisters, but they have done their work 
admirably, and there is not, as there would 
be in a damp climate, a painful contrast be- 
tween the fresh marble and the old, that has 
changed but to a deep yellow in four centuries. 
Besides, the copyist finds his work easy here, 
the prevailing character of the carving being 
susceptible of modern imitation. There is 
such diversity of ornament between every 
pair of arches that if the sculptor lets his 
chisel workout any tracery of leaves, or fruit, 
or twining vines, or grotesque forms of men 
and animals, he can hardly go wrong. 

We entered the chapel not by the door, 
but by means of a narrow, dusty and dusky 
staircase, and a veritable hole in the wall, 
through which we crawled and then stood 
on a hanging marble gallery overlooking the 
great nave. The church, notwithstanding 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. l8l 

much carving of badges, shields and inscrip- 
tions, is pitifully bare. It has but one altar, 
which stands at the western end, adorned 
with a handful of artificial flowers in common 
vases. 

San Juan, however, is not responsible for 
its poverty in monuments. At one time as 
rich as Westminster, it has, more than any 
other Spanish church, suffered outrage and 
spoliation in times of war. Itself the outcome 
of a victory, it has sown the wind to reap the 
whirlwind. La Houssaye was its last and 
worst despoiler, although he is said by some 
to have made an effort to save the chapel by 
giving over the cloister to the torch and 
sword of his soldiers. The Spaniards do not 
say this. With them he is in such bad odor 
that they do not hesitate to affirm he caused 
step ladders to be brought into the church in 
order to reach and demolish a dado of angels' 
heads carved round the walls, and swore 
like a fiend, because they were too short. 
These children's faces, encircling capitals 
and pillars, still smile at you with lovely lips 
and eyes, and it is for the purpose of obtain- 
ing a good view of this vmique decoration, 
the visitor is brought to inspect the chapel 
from the, gallery. 

Leaving the convent we went along a street 
that is more alley than street, and more like 



l82 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

the rear of an Irishman's cabin than either. 
It afforded difficult footing;- except where 
garbage and cinder heaps raised the declina- 
tion of the hill to the level of the cottas^es. 
This way followed at a safe elevation the 
windings of the roaring Tagus, and conducted 
to the church of Santa Maria la Blanca, once 
a synagogue, standing in what was anciently 
the Jews' quarters. In front of their doors 
sat dark-hued women looking with a sad ex- 
pression at their hair. At hrst we took them 
for daughters of Israel mourning by the 
waters of Babylon. A second look told us 
they were not Jewesses, and their hair-tear- 
ing was a penance ordered by necessity 
rather than sentiment. 

Santa Maria is a poor ghost, an attenuated 
spirit of dismal whiteness projected against 
a black cave. The roof is blind, and light 
enters through the portal like a nervous 
girl ready to fiy at the first word of love. 
Five octagonal piers lift up horseshoe arches, 
and piers and arches are thickly whitewashed. 
A conch-shaped recess behind the high altar 
alone preserves the dazzling effects of color 
and fascinating elegancies of detail, which 
were the enthusiasm of the Morisco twelfth 
century. 

The other synagogue, Nuestra Seuora del 
Transito, where we went next, is better pre- 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 1S3 

served. It is not so old and must always 
have been finer, though not so distinctly 
Arabic in style. Light is admitted in an 
iigreeable manner by openings around the 
walls just beneath the splendid Artisonado 
roof — the latter being the crowning beauty 
of this temple. The roof was undergoing 
repairs, and we brought away a clearer vis- 
ion of scaffolding, piles of tie-beams, barrels 
of plaster, than of the product of the Moorish 
artisans. Not that the Spanish carpenters 
were at work, they were not even pretend- 
ing, but they were about the premises and 
made themselves so prominent as to drive 
out of imagination, as their ancestors had 
done out of Spain, the turbaned craftsmen. 

Speaking as the crow flies, ruins of a palace 
built by Pedro the Cruel lie near by the Paseo 
del Transito, and we thought to improve the 
time by going alone to see them, that is to 
sav, unaccompanied by the obliging Alexis, 
who began to be too obliging for mere human 
nature. His untiring and exuberant enthu- 
siasm that went along rolling up adjectives 
and exclamations like a snow ball, with every 
step of our progress, at last worried us so 
that we would have liked to give it a push 
down the slope into the Tagus and so be quit 
of it. Alexis had a formula that he used to 
point out the view, to direct to a carved door, 



184 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

to lay before a shrine. This was " plus ma- 
gnifique ! plus pittoresque ! plus drole !" In 
despair we wondered for which of our sins 
Alexis was the punishment. 

In a ver}^ small and dirty cafe of the Paseo 
we seated Alexis, and went out ostensibly to 
wait for him, but really to lose him. The 
result was that we lost ourselves, as a cold 
gleam in Alexis' eye had predicted. The 
route to Pedro's palace was plain enough on 
the map ; we had but to follow the street 
called Taller del Moro, after a house reputed 
to be the most beautiful Moorish building in 
the city, until we reached the street called 
Santa Ursula. After that, a blind man could 
discover the ruined palace. So we said, 
while traversing the Ursula, with our eyes 
fixed on a large building at the end. Was 
this the ruin ? No, our map marked it plainly 
as the convent of Saint Bartholomew. The 
same invaluable paper informed us that the 
w^alls behind the Bartholomew enclosed 
another convent, the Santa Isabel, behind 
which, in turn,* stood the remains of Don 
Pedro's palace. Forward, then, to cut through 
these sanctuaries of the Middle Ages, which 
still preserve a feeble life, to the barbarism 
they ameliorated, which is dead. 

But the invaluable map did not picture 
how another street mysteriously joined the 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 185 

Ursula, and formed almost a complete circle. 
We made the discovery unaided, and wan- 
dered on, climbed steep acclivities, descended 
into black lanes— meeting now and then a 
shadowy figure that was swallowed up by 
the deeper gloom of a portal before we could 
interrogate it — and twice returned upon our 
steps, and twice stood before the thick wall 
of the convent of St. Bartholomew. 

We rang the convent bell three times, but 
nobody came, and again we dragged ourselves 
— hankering in secret for Alexis — along the 
unknown wynd, which continues the Ursula. 
But this time we observed an arch-wa3% and 
taking our lives in our hand we plunged be- 
neath it. A steep, narrow lane precipitated us 
on to the Paseo del Transito. Sidling across, 
with an eye to Alexis in the cafe, and clam- 
bering down the precipice, we rested on the 
grass-grown foundation of a bridge that has 
been washed away, and stared into the Tagus 
flowing beneath. 

It was late afternoon. The sun, setting on 
the other side of the city, threw slanting, red 
reflections on the hills, that rose, like cannon 
balls one above the other, and left the river a 
sombre, inky stain. The first stars faintly 
twinkled in the skv. It was still. No sounds 
came from the city, and the Tagus at this point 
hushes its angry murmur. We were alone, 



1 86 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

3'et we were surrounded as we had not been be- 
fore that day. Goth, Roman, Arab and Chris- 
tian came down the bank and clamored in our 
ears the taie of how Toledo had fared at the 
hand of each. Recollections that the desolate 
streets could not evoke, now flooded the spot 
that had seen all these conquerors but yielded 
to none, that had preserved inviolate its 
loyalty to nature. The city had kept a sullen 
silence when we asked it for memories. The 
barren rock, which had cast off the shackle of 
a bridge, teemed unsolicited with innumer- 
able voices. 

As we listened, another voice sounded in 
our ears — the voice of Alexis. He stood by 
us, but we had not heard him descend. He 
assumed a taller stature. He threw back his 
head and waved his hand toward the further 
shore. " Ah I" he exclaimed, " I felt that we 
are affined. Tell me — without compliment — 
if we are not affined! La ca))ipag)ic ! La 
riviere ! La unit ! We love them alike. 
Come, it is necessarv that we go to dine." 

Night hugged close the narrow wavs 
through which we tolU^wcd our guide, but 
the sky, when we caught a glimpse of it be- 
tween the sombre walls, was still roseate. 
More than ever the city seemed frozen, 
like that enchanted Eastern capital peopled 
bv stone inhabitants. Sonu^tinies turninir a 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 1 87 

corner we would se^ the roof-line of a lofty 
palace, painted by the sun, but this only 
increased the superstitious shiver of the 
lower darkness. At length, when totally 
desorienie, as Alexis expressed it, we came out 
on an open place and stopped in astonish- 
ment. Here it was still twilight — daylight 
even — and the cathedral, which we were 
looking at, was a conflagration ignited down 
to the portals. What surprised us, however, 
was not so much the unexpected illumination, 
as the modern appearance of the facade. 
Square, heavy, and not particularly beautiful, 
the church might have been a fabric of our 
own century set down amid the undated 
buildings of Time. What could we think, 
we who had been w^andering in the caves of 
Eblis, to come upon something not unknown, 
the like of which we had seen before? 

Yet, as w^e continued gazing, the light 
ascended, fading as it went, until the triple 
crown on the northwest tower flickered like 
expiring sparks. The mirage of contempo- 
raneousness vanished, and the cathedral fell 
back into harmony with the surrounding 
tombs. 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 



II. 



TOLEDO cathedral by daylight strikes the 
same modern note. It hides its huge 
proportions ingenuously, like a genius stoop- 
ing to converse with common men. It is not 
tricky. It docs n(^t rear its enormous crest 
and vast bulk suddenly. Such a coup de 
theatre is beneath Toledo. Like a mountain, 
it waits complacently for you to grow into a 
conception of its immensitv. 

The first circle of your growth is an en- 
dorsement of the accepted opinion, that 
it is not the exterior, but the interior of 
this famous church that is so magnificent. 
What we fancied during our twilight visit 
is true in daylight and in fact. The 
architects of the last three centuries have 
worked their destructive will on the lower 
part of the west fa^'ade, leaving untouched 
nothing characteristic or beautiful. This 
sweeping statement does not include every 
later addition. The northwest tower is hue, 
although it was repaired in 1660, after a fire. 
The steeple would be imposing on a less 
grand building. It rises, a simple square 
tower, from the base to about 170 feet in the 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 1S9 

air, changes to an octagon with turrets and 
pinnacles, and dwindles to a low spire. The 
companion tower was left unfinished up to 
the last century, when an Italian dome, too 
low, and uttcrl}' out of keeping-, terminated it. 

The sculptures of the circular west window, 
and the great doorway, were carried out 
about a century earlier than the northwest 
tower. Not so glorious as the doorway of 
St. Catherine, which opens from the cloister, 
the sculptures of the west doorway neyerthe- 
less detach themselves from the gloom cast 
by the heavy bronze doors, with peculiar 
effect. The subject is the Last Supper, and 
our Lord and the twelve apostles sit in deep 
niches, which are carried up all around the 
arch. The other great doorways are almost 
all modernized, and eyen this one hardly 
offers a proper yestibule to the interior. 
That is found in the dusky richness of the 
recessed Catalina door. 

Before this portal and in the cloisters we 
lingered, almost afraid to go in, lest we should 
not haye our expectations realized. Entering, 
we stood at the end ot the north transept. 
The yiew from there is like a glimpse of Par- 
adise. It is the great yiew of the church; a 
long sweep into the double aisles about the 
choir, across the high altar and down the side 
aisles of the nave. It is a yiew of iri'and ex- 



190 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

panse, remote height, and atmosphere enough 
for one day of the world. If we could only 
have been satisfied to stand there for a long, 
long time, and then gone away ! 

For the view across the north transept is 
not merely the pre-eminent view of Toledo ; 
it is the only one. When you abandon it and 
pass within the nave, or cross to the outer 
aisle, you lose proportion and perspective, and 
seem to wander in a big echoing hall. The 
primate church of Spain is too big and too 
white ; it is St. Peter's, covered with a coat 
of whitewash. All the rich colors of the 
profuse painted glass cannot mitigate the 
gruesome whiteness of the walls, nor trans- 
form the church into a sanctuary of a cheer- 
ful religion ; all its carving, tracery and 
gilding— in which it is richer than any other 
Spanish church — leave it gaunt, stern and 
unlovely. The gloom of Toledo is the tem- 
porary absence of light, not the Gothic dusk 
that the imagination fondly peoples with the 
rush of wings, or warms with the smile of 
serene faces. It is not that strange shadowy 
twilight, where a wraith of sound haunts the 
silence like a whispered chant; or where we 
see, phantom-like in the obscure depths, the 
priest, the nuns, the kneeling devotee, the 
distant aisles, the slender cross, the haloed 
saints in their niches, the glimmering robes 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. igi 

of the Virgin, and the long dim reach of 
sculptured tombs. It is not that profound 
quiet and brooding gloom, where all the 
agony and sorrow of the worshippers for four 
hundred years — their sighs, their tears, their 
prayers — lie hushed in the peace that pass- 
eth understanding. For Toledo does not^ 
as other churches, impress one that here the 
troubled and despairing cry of the heart, the 
pent-up fiood of grief, that man in his helpless 
and fleeting life pours out before his Maker, 
will be stilled forever in the supreme bosom 
of the church. There is nowhere in its 
atmosphere that sublime calm which one 
feels, a calm that passes across the soul like a 
transfiguration — as the spirit in the Bible 
passed across the face of the waters. 

The truth seems to be that Toledo, to be 
viewed aright, should be seen in gala. I like 
to imagine it as it must have looked on a day 
of civic or religious ceremony ; its pavement 
carpeted with velvets from the looms of 
Flanders ; its walls hung with banners and 
tapestry ; its altars decked with the pomp of 
drapery and plate ; its aisles and choir 
crowded with courtiers and ecclesiastical 
grandees, magnificent in vestments of silk 
and brocade, sparkling w^ith jewels and gold 
and silver laces. For such a brilliant throng, 
the stately fabric offers a fitting setting. 



192 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

But when the lights are out, the banners 
down, the precious vessels locked up in the 
chapter-house, like all fabrics erected for 
magnificent ceremonies, Toledo is not in a 
state to receive critical visitors. They go 
about, longing for the hidden things, and look- 
ing ill-humoredly at what is left. Yet some of 
the fixtures are almost unmixed delights. Par- 
ticularly beautiful is the choir screen, the 
most gorgeous in Spain, and the feature of 
the greatest interest in the cathedral. It en- 
closes the whole of the eastern bay of the 
nave, and is supposed to have crossed the 
transepts and completely shut them out from 
the choir. To-day the work of the old sculp- 
tors extends but to the transept column, 
where it joins, at right angles, new carvings 
in designs of lions and castles. Behind the 
altar, also, the old screen work has been 
mutilated to admit that sickening execution 
in marble, of angels, clouds and rays of light, 
knovv^n as El Transparente. 

The design of the screen that crosses the 
nave is an arcade raised upon marble shafts, 
terminated by pointed arches beneath each 
of which is a niche containing a subject sculpt- 
ured in high relief. A delicate balustrade 
connects the canopies over these sculptures, 
and along it perch strange figures of humans 
and beasts commixed, so characteristic of the 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 1 93 

mediseval sculptors with whom the spirit of 
life was the spirit of naivete. 

I did not, however, experience as much 
pleasure in dissecting- the sculptures and fol- 
lowing up the story told by each one, as in 
standing off at a little distance and contem- 
plating the screen as a whole, when its effect 
was like an inspiration. I think I could not 
listen to one criticising it Avithout loss of 
temper. I mean, of course, if the criticism 
were to be directed against the screen as a 
creation of art, and not against its use here 
for which there is no defense. It has no right 
in the cathedral where its vista-breaking 
presence is almost a crime. Nay, it zvas a 
crime to erect in this church, which in plan 
belongs to the French school, a choir and 
screen so essentially Spanish. 

But, inside the choir, we no longer make 
distinctions of nationality, for it belongs to 
Magnificence, a country of which we are all 
citizens, at least, in dreams. It is a church in 
itself ; a church of carved wood, ornamental 
marble, and shining bronze and brass. There 
are two rows of stalls, the upper by Berruguete 
and Felipe de Burgona, and the lower range 
were carved by Maestro Rodrigo, in 1493. 
They are pleasing in shape, tall and massive 
and enriched with tracery, panels and figures 
of monkeys and other grotesque animals 



194 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

doing all sorts of acrobatic feats with their 
tails. 

We went to the chapels — San lldefonzo 
which enshrines the slab where the Virgin's 
feet alighted, when she came down to 
earth to inspire the inception of this cathe- 
dral ; the Santiago where Don Alvaro de 
Luna and his wife are buried, and the Santa 
Lucia, where there is an extremely rich 
Moorish arch w^ithout a bit of connection,, 
except that of gem to casket, to the fine 
Gothic pointed chapel. We visited others 
as beautiful and as interesting, but after 
awhile, human nature wearied of their mar- 
bles and gilding and iron work. We thought 
to rest our eyes upon the more perishable 
riches of Toledo, the world famous p7'ccio- 
diades of this sacred see ; the pearl mantle of 
the silver Virgin, her rings, necklaces and 
bracelets. 

That we did not behold these things was 
not our fault, but the old sacristan's. Why 
he suspected us, I cannot say, but he is old, 
he has lived a long time and acquired a vast 
experience. We forgave him because he gave 
us the key to the bell-tower, but he knew we 
could not steal the bells. This sacristan was 
an old, old man, with contempt for the human 
race that sounded a fathom deep for every 
one of his years. He had a pointed, wizened 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. I95 

brown face, set with little twinkling black 
eyes — a very mole in appearance, and quite 
as averse to sunlight. He was shifty and 
double in his dealings with us, and while ac- 
cepting fees, never allowed them to soften 
him. He seemed to have outlived the value 
but not the greed of money, and he cherished 
the treasures of the cathedral in the same 
miserly way, loving them as long as he could 
hide them. He made a number of appoint- 
ments for us to visit the wardrobe of the 
Great Queen, but he broke them all. After 
we had succeeded in wrenching the bell 
tower key off his girdle, .it was useless to beg 
or bribe him for anything beside. 

The journey to the upper regions of Toledo 
is exceptional. You ascend by a staircase in 
the archbishop's palace to a gallery thrown 
over the roof, connecting the houses of the 
clergy and the servants of the church. This 
gallery entirely surrounds the upper cloister, 
and a black stairway leads thence to the 
tower of the bells. The ascent is repaid by 
making the acquaintance of San Eugenio, the 
famous bell that has rung through the length 
and breadth of Spain, and that determines 
the rank as a singer of every other Spanish 
bell. While we stood there the wheel of bells 
began to move. It was four o'clock in the 
afternoon, and we hastened down to hear the 



196 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

singing of the lauds. Blasts of sound, like the 
growls of a giant losing his prey, pursued our 
descending steps, jarring heavier and growing 
more and more like the rumble of Polyphemus 
as we neared the ground. In the gallery the 
bells suddenly changed their tune and rang 
out light and airy notes like a soprano chorus, 
a delightful harmony, which it was difficult 
to believe came from the same throats that 
had jangled and threatened in the tower. 

Re-entering the cathedral we found it full 
of sound. A little group of worshippers knelt 
before the screen of the coro listening to the 
organ and the chanting of the choir. We 
drew near, but soon retreated in order to 
discover the cause of a puzzling echo. The 
pauses of the service and the silences of the 
organ were full of voices and instrumental 
peals. It seemed impossible they could be 
reverberations from the rafters, and, indeed, 
the sounds came from the western aisle. We 
walked thither and solved the mystery. A 
service in the Mozarabic chapel, with an 
organ and a choir equal to those of the main 
church, was going on at the same time. The 
Mozarabic ritual differs in quantity and not 
in kind from the Roman. It is still performed 
daily at the chapel, and is a stronger instance 
of the durability of the established than even 
Toledo itself. 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 1 97 

We lingered in this chapel to study the 
fresco on the west wall. It represents the 
siege of Oran, that Cardinal Ximenez spared 
neither money nor pains to swell into a tre- 
mendous victory, and is in a very bad state 
of preservation. In its best days, however, 
it could have had no artistic value, and to 
say truth, I think the present are its best days. 
It strikes the eye now like an oasis in the 
white desert of Toledo. What improvement 
a few frescoes — even bad ones, would bring 
to this cathedral ! Toledo is grim, unbend- 
ing, and intolerant. Her attitude is a cold 
holding up of herself to the staring light 
of day. She makes hard terms with every- 
thing within her gates, beauties as well 
as defects, and, like a Puritan, neither 
forces the former on your notice nor with- 
draws the latter into the graceful evasion of 
a shadow. 

If you desert the main church for certain 
bye-places, you will find plenty of color. 
One of these Avarming pans, as we irreve- 
rently called the chapels with pictures, is the 
Capilla de San Bias, which leads to the sum- 
mer Chapter House. When we stood on the 
threshold and looked across the dim-painted 
chapel into the dimmer-painted Chapter 
House, it was like looking into the rich heart 
of a pomegranate. For there are some old 



198 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

frescoes which have long since gone to red, 
inside the dusky upper arches of San Bias. 

The charm of San Bias, it must be admitted, 
is stolen from the cathedral. We came here 
again and again, worn out with the Pallas-like 
sternness of the interior, to relax our minds 
in things imbued with a restful shabbiness. 
Furniture and drapery that have grown too 
threadbare for use at those altars constantly 
on parade, are relegated here where the 
shadows are tender to their rents and dis- 
abilities. Things that would be hideous in 
the clean-swept church show delightful in 
San Bias, like the rags and stains of a capt- 
ured banner. Altar cloths, vestments, pallia 
— rejected by vestiary and priest — are brought 
here, and drip from tables and walls in 
charming intimacy with dust and moth. 
Squares of tapestry with the Virgin's head 
gone to a smudge, and the golden crown to 
base metal, napkins with dirty fringes, dingy 
chasubles — how contented they look to be 
relieved from smart brushings and decorous 
foldings ! 

And because this chapel is dusky, and its 
roof glows like smouldering fire, and in every 
corner a lively skirmish goes on daily be- 
tween yellow light and chestnut shade — 
because, in short, decay is natural and cleanli- 
ness is artificial, these miserable rags, instead 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 199 

of suggesting a fire, attract the eye by mel- 
odious hints of color and teach us how Time's 
gradual touch may moulder into beauty even 
unimportant things. 

What it is that stops this study of Time in 
the cathedral is difficult to put in words, or to 
explain in any way. A day spent there is 
more than enough to impress you Avith its 
massive symmetry and its simple nobleness. 
Two days, three, or a week, are not enough 
to make you love it. In fact, by as many 
hours as you pass under its lofty roof, tjic 
feeling grows that something is wanting. 
You wander everywhere, absorbing alwa3's 
something of its coldness ; you wander, look- 
ing for a word which the centuries have writ- 
ten, the word finis. It is not there. You 
carry away with you the impression of a 
cathedral unfinished and unfurnished, which, 
for that reason, the ghosts of four centuries 
will not deign to inhabit ; a cathedral on 
which the builder's hand faltered before 
he could bequeath his plan to a worthy 
descendant, and which, ever after, men 
have foolishly hidden away from the com- 
pleting tools of nature. Like an unfinished 
manuscript of a great author, Spain's 
primate church appeals to the curiosity 
of the brain rather than to the affection of 
the heart. 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 



III. 



AT last, as at first, one is forced to admit 
there is no writing intelligibly about 
Toledo. To say that it is a shell with a rim 
of crustacean inhabitants is not description, 
but generalization. Nothing is easier than 
to generalize over the city of the Visigoths. 
Perhaps, after staying there only three days 
I am audacious in writing anything, but for 
the impertinence I have two excuses, one 
being that few people stay so long, and the 
other that the actual Toledo utterly failed to 
dislodge the mental Toledo. Before I went 
there it existed as a city of terraces, of 
houses whose roofs made hanging galleries 
from which dark-eyed ladies looked down on 
the lists in the Vega. The women I saw in 
Toledo may have had black eyes, but they 
were neither beautiful nor ladies, and yet 
there gleams again for me on the cliff walls 
of Toledo the silken splendor of Aldegonde's 
pavilion. 

The actual city has neither wisdom nor 
romance to disclose, and not much of what is 
commonly called interest. It serves but as 
a resting-place for the overworked imagina- 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 20 1 

tion. Somewhere between presentiment and 
emotion, Toledo lies — the Toledo, that is, of 
the mind, and the time spent within the gates 
of the hoary capital is but an hiatus between 
periods given over to visions. 

Which shall I write about, asks one, wish- 
ing to tell the truth, the dream city or the 
real? And how can one decide when there 
is no real, when the description of Toledo as 
it exists is the description of a stone three- 
quarters in shadow ? 

One easy method of describing Toledo is 
to tell what is not there. It is certain that 
we saw no lists in the Vega, no silken dra- 
peries, no beautiful women. The inhabitants 
made no effort to amuse us, but left us free 
to reconstruct the place with reverie, and 
destroy it again with ennui. For two days 
we built and tore down, and on the third 
found ourselves reduced to accept the ancient 
city for what it was, and instead of going 
about dreaming, we went looking. Matters 
had adjusted themselves, and we might have 
stayed on indefinitely, leading tranquil lives, 
and dreaming of Toledo, as of any other 
dim tract of No Man's Land, that we never 
expected to behold except in dreams. 

Meanwhile our eyes saw whatever life was 
to be seen in Toledo. The blood flowed with 
comparative rapidity in a smart little street 



202 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

not far from the Fonda de Lino. We went 
there to buy a pistol, and the shop where 
such a modern invention could be found, was 
of all places, an antiquary shop. But we 
remained to turn over what seemed to be 
treasures, and I have no doubt that all we 
did not buy were treasures. The rubbish we 
selected was not forced on us by the cheerful 
merchant whom I wish to commend as the 
only civil shop-keeper out of Madrid. He 
had the true American salesman's sympathy 
for the purchaser, and instead of scowling at 
IIS over his brasero, after the almost univer- 
sal Spanish custom, he felt glad to show us 
his goods. His little shop — dark and dirty 
a« a self-respecting antiquity shop ought to 
be— was a veritable museum of curiosities. 
It Avas particularly rich in curios of the six- 
teenth century — embroideries, carvings, 
tapestries — and encouraged by our exclama- 
tions at the first articles exhibited, he brought 
out of cabinets, drawers, and pigeon holes, 
an almost limitless treasury. Rembrandt 
would have found in this shop abundant ma- 
terial for enriching his studio. From a 
back room no larger than a closet, the mer- 
chant brought forth a pile of coverlets of 
velvets, silk, and stuff stiff with gold and 
silver, that reached to his shoulder. It 
seemed as if this merchant had robbed all the 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 205 

beds of the sixteenth century, and heaped 
their riches and luxuries in the narrow com- 
pass of his shop. Antique arms, coats of mail, 
shields that preserve traces of the golden 
cross, Moorish scimitars and poniards, with 
chased silver scabbards, or sheaths of velvet 
or leather, chaplets of cedar of Lebanon, 
gold and silver images of curious taste, and 
innumerable other articles of ancient fashion, 
and almost unknown uses — all these things 
has this poverty-stricken merchant in his 
costly and singular collection, and he allows 
you to turn and tumble over every article to 
your heart's content. 

Upon the walls were hung trophies wrested 
from the Moors, and a banner captured by 
Don John at Lepanto. As to the latter, 
knowing how jealously Spain has ever guarded 
the spoils of her natural son, we kept an in- 
credulous silence. Our enthusiasm, otherwise, 
was quite satisfactory to the merchant, and 
he fed it lavishly. From a tiny tabatiere of 
some strange-smelling Avood, he extracted a 
bracelet woven from the hair of Don Pedro 
and Maria Padilla. He followed this wath 
another, a snuff-box in silver, which he shook 
in his hand eliciting a sound like a dry pea in 
its pod. This he was about to open after 
smilingly asserting it contained the preserved 
heart of Mendoza, but we looked him sternly 



204 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

in the face, all our admiration turned to sad- 
ness, quickly paid him for the pistol and other 
purchases, and departed. I have regretted 
since that I took offense so quickly. It could 
have done me no harm to look at the withered 
membrane — of course it was not the heart 
of Mendoza, but it could have done no harm 
to look. 

The other shops in the Place of the Mer- 
chants sold more modern rags than the one 
we patronized. Half of them sported in the 
windows and before the door§, a motley col- 
lection of cotton scarfs, stockings and shirts, 
while the other half exhibited an equally 
gaudy show of vegetables of which the staple 
were beans and garlic. It was not easy to 
pick out of the knot of people clustered about 
each shop door, the merchant and the cus- 
tomer, for in Spain both are plural. No one 
in Toledo goes alone to the market-place ; 
every citizen is accompanied by his entire 
household, and to meet this concerted action, 
as a measure of self protection, the pro- 
prietor surrounds himself with his partisans. 
Accordingly, when the two armies join battle 
over a pint of beans or a yard of calico, the 
Place of the Merchants becomes a very lively 
spot. 

In comparison, the Zocodover, now called 
the Plaza de la Constitucion, is dead, although 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 205 

it is the popular promenade of the citizens. 
There the Toledan, not being animated by the 
desire to get a real advantage of his neigh- 
bor, manifests his absolute indifference to 
everything and everybody. It is colder in 
the Zocodover than in other parts of Toledo, 
which is natural, for it is open, while the nar- 
row and winding streets were so built by the 
Moors to protect them against the sun and 
wind. But the cold seems caused by the 
frown of the Alcazar that crowns, stiff and 
severe, the crest on the right. We never saw 
many people in the plaza, sometimes a party 
of very poor peasants chatting together in 
mournful monotonous voices, and always 
three or four officers who fiung their white 
braided blue capes over their shoulders, rolled 
and smoked cigarettes and, at regular inter- 
vals, solemnly saluted themselves. The shops 
about the place might as well have been closed 
for all the custom they attracted, but the 
cafes, especially that of the Constitztcion, en- 
joyed a rushing trade. We used to drop in 
to shiver on a bench as hard as those of the 
Zocodover and listen to the conversation. 
This listening could not be called eaves- 
dropping, for every speaker roared out his 
sentiments so as to be heard in all parts of the 
room. The favorite and constantly recurring 
word of these chocolate and coffee-drinkers 



2o6 THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 

was "abajo." Every body seemed to be de- 
sirous to put something or somebody down. 
No, not every body, for the officers and the 
cadets from the x\lcazar military school spoke 
of institutions they were willing to leave 
standing, but these were mostly in Madrid, 
where the officers had been and the cadets 
laid eager plans to go. 

These bored officers and callow cadets 
formed our last link with the modern world. 
We clutched at it, this final day, in order to 
resist the deadly fascination of ruin and went 
to see how and where they live^ We went 
first to the college of Santa Cruz, where the 
sons of officers are lodged during the three 
years course of the military instruction en- 
joined by the State. There were less than a 
hundred of these youths, who pay $i.oo a 
day for their board ; the remaining five hun- 
dred cadets being lodged and boarded in the 
Alcazar for half that sum. 

The college of Santa Cruz — formerly a hos- 
pital, founded by Cardinal Mendoza, is one of 
the loveliest early sixteenth century build- 
ings of Spain — an era when the fiorid Gothic 
was merging into the Renaissance. In this 
monument the transition is accomplished 
without any of the incongruities so frequent- 
ly met with in plateresque examples. Surely 
Enrique de Egas, when he placed the match- 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 207 

less group of the invention of the Cross over 
the portal, wrought with the inspired chisel 
of Alonzo Cano. The patio fulfills the gate's 
promise. It is surrounded by two stories of 
light arcades supported by slender white 
columns, and it contains a staircase the like 
of which cannot be seen elsewhere in Spain. 
Upon it have been lavished all the resources 
of artists trained in two fruitful schools, the 
Renaissance and the Mudejar. 

But we hasten to visit the home of the 
other five hundred cadets ; w^e feel more in- 
terested in them than in these pampered 
young aides-de-camp, and, besides, nobody 
asks us to see any other part of Santa Cruz 
but the patio. Presently w^e are climbing the 
highest hill of Toledo in the shadow of the 
Royal Alcazar. We stand for a moment in 
the plaza beneath its frowning facade and en- 
joy a magnificent view of Toledo, its descend- 
ing streets just distinguishable among sloping 
roofs, its ascending spires that still are min- 
arets, its broad road to the bridge of Alcan- 
tara, the green-blue Tagus, the granite hill 
opposite crowned by the ruined castle of San 
Cervantes. All the details of this view look 
like a work of Nature in which man had no 
part. 

The Alcazar, too, looks like a part of the 
rock on which it stands. Its indestructible 



2g8 three toledan days. 

walls have had nine centuries in which to 
amalgamate with their foundations. And yet 
this palace has seen terrible convulsions. 
The Portuguese burned it in the war of suc- 
cession, and Cardinal Lorenzana restored it for 
Charles III. just in time for Soult's soldiers 
to occupy it as a barrack. The same troops 
burned it again when evacuating the half- 
ruined city. It was left to itself for half a 
century, Isabella having bestow^ed her love 
and money elsewhere, and then the short 
lived republic began to restore it for a mili- 
tary school. Alphonso completed the work 
and carried out the intention. Now, the vast 
quadrangle echoes to the spurred-heels of 
lively school-boys, their names are scribbled 
on the fine staircase and their mischievous 
eyes peer down from the upper galleries on 
the sauntering strangers. They are under 
the charge of an Inspector-General and a 
numerous staff of teachers. They pay a nom- 
inal price for their board, but the instruction, 
which comprehends a curriculum almost 
identical with that of West Point, is gratui- 
tous. A very relaxed discipline, compared 
to our Hudson river academy, prevails in the 
Alcazar. 

On the low parapet, in front of the palace, 
I lingered for awhile. The roofs below me 
lay plunged in dark blue shadows. The end 



THREE TOLEDAN DAYS. 209 

of the afternoon and our stay approached. 
Three days had elapsed since we reached 
Toledo, and we knew as much of its physi- 
ognomy as we could ever learn. We had 
seen its churches and chapels, its palaces of 
king and monk. These ghosts had filled me 
with an impatient longing to be gone. 

We ran back to the Fonda de Lino and, 
for the last time, entered the omnibus to go 
to the station. With some confusion, for we 
had cut him remorselessly, we recognized 
Alexis Amaudry in a fellow-passenger. He 
had put on a broad-brimmed sombrero in 
place of his usual silk hat, and, with the ex- 
change, he seemed to have taken on another 
character. He had nothing to say, but 
waved his hand, and continued to read a 
little note book. 

The train started, bearing us southward, 
and, as we took our last look at the city dis- 
appearing behind its granite hills, we tried 
to answer a question, unanswerable then and 
which has remained unsolved, Were we glad 
or were we sorry that we had seen Toledo ? 



